I 



ULTRAMONTANISM, 

Oa THE 

ROMAN CHURCH AND MODERN SOCIETY. 



By E. QUINET, 

0¥ THE COLLEGE OF FRANCE. 
THIRD EDITION, WITH THE AUTHOR'S APPROBATION, 

By C. cocks, B.L. 




" Instead of casting an interdict upon almost all ages, 1 see them all proceeding 
from God, gradually approaching the light and life. Each brings its image, rite 
and thought to that tradition in which they ought all to be represented. I no 
longer find any profane history ; every history is sacred to me, because I recog- 
nise in every one the reflection of something divine, without which it would not 
subsist. Ought I, because Christianity has exalted me, to look from my eminence 
only with contempt upon that unknown crowd of my brethren, who, from one 
worship or another, are climbing up towards this splendour ?" — Page 82. 



LONDON: 

JOHN CHAPMAN, 121, NEWGATE STREET. 



M.DCCC.XLV, 



PEEFACE BY THE TEANSLATOR. 



The favourable reception obtained by my translation of 
M. IMichelet's new work, " Priests, Women and Families,^^ 
has induced me to attempt tlie present historical and phHoso- 
phical work of his friend and colleague M. Quinet. 

The merit of this book has been eminently proved by the 
enthusiasm it has excited among enlightened and unprejudiced 
readers, not only in Paris and throughout France, but also in 
Geimany, where several translations of it have already ap- 
peared. When public opinion has almost unanimously pro- 
nounced in favour of a great writer, the translator need not 
superfluously attempt to " gdd refined gold, — or cast a per- 
fume on the violet his duty will be simply to leave the 
volume to the unbiassed judgment of the candid reader. Let 
him then decide, not whether the work be orthodox or hetero- 
dox, according to this or that particidar church ; but whether 
the argument be fairly conducted or not, and whether the 
whole volume be not superlatively Evangelical, and imbued 
with the very essence of spiiitual Christianity. 

For my o^ti part, I have followed what I have ever con- 
sidered the most satisfactory manner of translating books of 
this natm*e ; which is, to give a faithful interpretation of the 
author in as near as possible his o^vn style of language. 

Though I need say so httle upon the subject of the book 
a 



iv 



PREFACE. 



itself, I beg leave to avail myself of tliis opportunity of ex- 
pressing to M. Quinet my sincere gratitude for the many 
obliging favom's I liave so often received from liim dming the 
progress of this translation.* His eminent talents receive 
new lustre from his urbanity and universal benevolence ; and 
the pleasure I have derived from the perusal of his works can 
only be equalled by that of having gained his esteem and 
approbation. 

c. a 

Bordeaux, August 1, 1845. 

* He not only forwarded me early numbers of his works, but kindly 
offered his assistance if necessary : — " Je serais tout empresse," says he, 
in one of his letters, " de vous ofFrir mon propre concours, s'il pouvait 
vous etre utile. Mes elforts tendent i I'union de la grande famille 
bumaine," &c. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Author's Preface to the Third Edition ... 1 
The Author's Address to his Auditors .... 3 



FIEST LECTUEE. 

THE SUPERLATIVELY CATHOLIC KINGDOM OF 
SPAIN. 

Preliminary explanations. — Situation of the Spanish Church. — 
Studies made upon the spot. — A nation that serves as an expe- 
riment to Ultramontanism. — Philip II. and Napoleon. — Why 
the Church of Spain has fallen. — What the people asked for. — 
A Lesson for the French Clergy. — Two societies opposed to 
each other : the Middle Ages and the Nineteenth Century. — 
Social Mission of the Peninsula : a nation of paupers. — France 
responsible for civilization. — What a Neo-Catholic reaction 
would be in the South. — France more Catholic than Rome . 7 



SECOND LECTURE. 

POLITICAL RESULTS OF CATHOLICISM IN 
SPAIN. 

Two-fold education of Spain by Christianity and by Ultramontan- 
ism. — Interdict in the Middle Ages, and in our time. — Menaces 

a 2 



Vi CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

of the Church. — Have modern States no other foundation than 
Catholicism ? — New questions : Divinity in the modern world ; 
applied to Spain. — Spirit of Equality and Servitude. — What is 
its cause ? — Communion by blood. — A religious sanction given 
to violence by the Inquisition. — What a royal soul might do. — 
Symptoms of new life. — The Cortes. — Spanish Eloquence. — 
Voting. — Cause of the indifference of the people for poli- 
tical questions. — What must be done ? — A new Mahometanism 
to be combated ......... 22 



THIED LECTUEE. 

THE ROMAN CHURCH AND THE STATE. 

The Councils. — Relation between the religious and the political 
Constitutions. — Council of Florence. — Hopes deceived. — Spirit 
of the Council of Trent. — Ideal of Ultramontanism. — The 
Church, formerly democratical, becomes an absolute Monarchy. 
— Europe is fashioned upon this model. — Who troubled this 
order? — Is the modern State Atheistical? — Catholicism and 
Protestantism ; France belongs exclusively to neither. — Opinion 
of Leibnitz. — In an eminent danger, what would be the banner 
of France ? — She would be a mediatrix between the North and 
the South. — The Council perpetually assembled . .36 



rOUETH LECTUEE. 

THE ROMAN CHURCH AND SCIENCE. 

The Church is unpeopled. — Galileo. — Genius of intuition. — His 
philosophy. — Bacon. — Kepler. — Enthusiasm in Mathematics. — 
Why observation was sterile in the Middle Ages. — Galileo does 
the oflSce of Priest. — Revolution which his system brought into 



CONTENTS. yii 

PAGB 

the dogma. — Equality of heaven and earth. — Divorce between 
the Church and Science. — The Rigorous Examination. — Moral 
Torture. — Who are the Prophets in the Modern World ? The 
Church abused by her own ; Galileo more Christian than Rome. 
— The heroism of intellect. — Truly Catholic Science . . 52 



FIETH LECTURE. 

THE ROMAN CHURCH AND HISTORY. 

Necessity of an instruction more religious than the ecclesiastical. 
— Relations between Vico and Popery. — Principle of the new 
science. — Providence an accomplice of Paganism. — Vico and 
Bossuet. — Philosophy of Revelation. — There is no Profane 
History. — What is the end of History in Ultramontanism ? — The 
Priest stripped twice in one century of two sacred attributions. 
— Humanity and Sects . . . . , . . ,75 



SIXTH LECTUEE. 

THE ROMAN CHURCH AND LAW. 

Tfie Inquisition. Vice's last effort. — Giannone. — Silence begins to 
reign in the South. — Spirit of the Inquisition. — Impossible for 
the Roman Church not to transport its principle into its penal 
code. — Decrees of torture. — The Roman Law. — What does the 
Church in the sixteenth century? — The Executioner. — The 
penal law of the middle ages. — The Church loses the perception 
of the divine, countenances Jesuitism, abhors innovation. — Per- 
secution of St Philip de Neri, St. Charles Borromeo, St. John 
de la Croix, and Louis de Leon. — Transitions of the Church. — 
Port Royal. — M. de Ranee. — The Trappists. — Principles of the 
Port Royalists. — Pascal 88 



VUl 



CONTENTS. 



SEVENTH LECTUEE. 

THE ROMAN CHURCH AND PHILOSOPHY. 

PAGE 

Italy had her eighteenth century two hundred years before ours. 
— That movement does not spread. — Why ? — New signification 
of the eighteenth century. — Migration of the modern world. — 
Necessity of re-establishing the thread of French tradition. — 
Are the Philosophers of the eighteenth century merely sceptics ? 
— The kingdom of the Spirit. — Concessions made by Philosophy 
to the invasions of 1814 and 1815. — Voltaire denied. — Why ? — 
Voltaire an instrument of God against his sinful Church ; the 
organ of the universal Spirit. — Rousseau ; his relations with 
Protestantism. — What are the works of the new Spirit ? . .108 



EIGHTH LECTUEE. 

THE ROMAN CHURCH AND NATIONS. 

Social contract between papacy and Italy. — Upon what condition 
did Italy sacrifice her nationality ? — Policy advised by the 
Church. — Savonarola. — Chiabrera. — Filicaja. — Contempt of the 
Roman Church for nationalities. — In what Rome disavows the 
ideal of sacred policy. — Her part played in contemporary his- 
tory. — Napoleon and the Pope. — Congresses. — How to vanquish 
Rome without combating her . . . . . . .126 



NINTH LECTUEE. 

THE ROMAN CHURCH AND THE UNIVERSAL 
CHURCH. 

False ideal in literature. — Religious questions which indicate the 
work of the future. — What is true in the reaction. — What is the 
instinct of immortality ? — Of the Universal City of Souls. — Nevr 



CONTENTS. ix 

PAGE 

aspect of the Clergy throughout Europe. — Rome and Humanity. 
— Is the fortune of the Roman race connected with that of the 
Roman Churcli ? — Every Christian nation is immortal. Greece. 
Italy. — In what consists the genius of the French Revolution ? 
— A token of the future. — Conclusion ..... 143 



APPENDIX. 

Answer to some observations of the Archbishop of Paris . .160 

Funeral Oration pronounced at the tomb of M. Geoffrey Saint- 
Hilaire . . . , 180 

Answer to a Speech pronounced June 20, at the end of my 
Lectures 184 



PREFACE 

TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



Several volumes have been written to refute this work ; yet, 
I print it again to-day, such as it originally appeared ; for it 
contains a fund of ideas with which I shall live and die. 

My adversaries have cheated themselves into the belief, that 
this book is the work of chance, — a mere polemical treatise. 
I say, The Genius of Religions, The Jesuits^ Ultramontanism, 
and Christianity and the T'rench Revolution, form an ensemble 
of principles independent of every circumstance. My life, 
thank G-od, does not float about at the beck and call of con- 
troversy ; neither, in order to discover where the Chm'ch was, 
did I await till the storm arose. 

E. UUINET. 

Paris, June Mh, 1845. 



B 



TO MY AUDITOES. 



I DEDICATE these pages to the known and unknown friends 
I may have among you ; and thereby I desire to bear witness 
that whatever truth is contained in them, sprung from your 
conscience as much as from my own. 

You have felt, better than any, the importance of the reli- 
gious questions now so wai'mly debated. You felt convinced 
that all the fatm*e is contained in them : in these struggles of 
the intellect, though the names be old, the things they con- 
ceal are entii'ely new. 

Far fi'om hating our adversaries, , you thought we ought 
rather to congi-atulate om-selves on their aggressions. They 
do what they believe to be their duty ; let us take thence the 
occasion to do what is assm-edly oui*s. 

If sincere emotion has so often bm-st forth among you and 
affected me, it is not my voice, but facts that have spoken 
and cried out to you from this chair. I had merely to show 
them to you, and that ferment of the futm-e, which they con- 
tain, was aroused ; it burst out in yom' consciences still so 
young ; and, like a pure diamond, they produced as soon as 
they were touched, the spark of life. 

We did not go to seek out questions foreign to us ; I have 
avoided them as much as I as able ; but they have rushed 
upon me : I should have been unworthy to open my mouth, 
if I had not endeavom-ed to give utterance to the thought 
they contain. 

It would have been unquestionably more comfortable for me^ 
to avoid an open conflict. Do I not know that, in affairs of this 
b2 



4 



TO MY AUDITORS. 



nature, we find against us tlie headstrong, wliom we must 
oppose, tlie indiflerent, wlio do not wish to he aroused, and 
all those who, engaged in some detail or other, do not wish, us 
to bring them back into the midst of difficidties? More- 
over, what is the lot of these works mitten with the purest 
blood of om' hearts? Many fancy that we cannot enter 
deeply into such things, with all the impartiahty and atten- 
tion of a literary man in the peaceful sohtude of his closet. 
They do not know that some minds, on the contrary, feel a 
real calmness, an inspii-ation, a remarkable equanimity, in 
the very front of battle. They object to us what is pre- 
cisely, in our estimation, the pm-est mark of truth ; and never 
has the world mistrusted, more than it does to-day, whoever 
considers the soul as an authority. They abandon to us, 
with a smile, honom', dignity and liberty, that simple ap- 
panage which it is fashionable in our age to call the errors of 
youth. 

I knew all that, and yet I persevered ; for, I am convinced 
that Jesuitism and Ultramontanism are only a symptom of an 
evil unquestionably more deeply rooted ; those marshy plants 
indicate the state of the smi'ounding atmosphere. If we do 
not, in spite of every obstacle, re-animate the principle of 
moral life, I feel perfectly certain that we are hastening to- 
wards om' overthi'ow, an iiTcmediable downfall before all 
Europe. With this conviction, I was not permitted to hesi- 
tate about throwing myself into the thickest of this battle, 
where my adversaries are, as it were, on every side. 

What has become of that gTeat instruction which, during 
the restoration, resounded from the political tribune ? When 
almost everybody aspnes only to become possihle,* ideas 
remain, by absolute necessity, far below reahty. 

* Se rendre possible is a new political expression in France. Homme 
possible means a man whose views and opinions coinciding with those 
of the government, permit the possibility of his being employed by it ; 
a man of a contrary opinion is called impossible. — C. C. 



TO MY AUDITORS. 



5 



In a recent publication, we were contented to refate the 
past ; to-day we go much fiu'ther. The scepticism of hell is 
that which denies itself. Jesuitism has compromised Catho- 
licism ; beware lest Catholicism, thus engaged, do not com- 
promise Christianity. Such has been om* starting point. 
But, without confining ourselves to a critical point of view, 
we have marked out real foundations. We have raised, 
opposite to each of the ideas of Ultramontanism, another 
idea, at once more true, more fertile, and more religious. 
We have criticised the past only in showing the signs of the 
futm-e. 

It is evident I neither can nor ought to attach any literary 
importance to the form of discom'ses which were, generally 
spealdng, sketched on one day, and printed the next ; but I 
do attach an immense importance to the matter, which is, as 
it were, the very basis of my conscience, and for which I am 
ready to endm-e every thing. The mere arrangement of 
words will not disguise my meaning from any person. 

It is certain we have brought discussion upon the most 
serious matters. The middle ages did not use it otherwise 
in those famous schools, in which the most vital problems of 
every period ever resounded. How can we refuse ourselves 
to-day what was the common right of the tliirteenth century ? 

Secret instruction can no longer be possible for anybody. 
In questions of such vital importance as those which are now 
being discussed, om' country has the right to know exactly 
who and what we are. If I speak in the spirit of France, let 
^ her strengthen me ! If not, let her know it, and crush me. I 
entertain the conviction that I have espoused what has made, 
in modern times, her grandem*, her strength, her union, and 
her glory before God and man. Is it possible that she no 
longer cherishes any of these things ? 

Moreover, if it be true that there is, somewhere or other, 
an alliance between people persuaded that religion is good at 
least to amuse and tm-n aside the minds of nations, it is good 



6 



TO MY AUDITOES. 



to wani tliem that nobody is the dupe of tliis double impiety 
towards heaven and earth. 

What we must restore or prepare at every price, is the 
reign and religion of sincerity. If one generation consent to 
lose it, let us work to enable the new generation to restore 
it ; then would the sons redeem theii' fathers, 

E. QUINET. 

Paris, im July, 1844. 



FIllST LECTURE. 



ON THE SUPERLATIVELY CATHOLIC KINGDOM 
OF SPAIN. 

Maech 20, 1844- 

In order to speak of the South of Europe, I have just ai'rived 
from visiting Grenada and Cordova. Considering at what 
point we have now arrived, and in what cii-cumstances we 
have been placed, I felt convinced, that in order to pronounce 
a serious discoiu'se upon the genius of the South and Cathohc 
nations, it was indispensable for me to visit that country 
which, amid all her intestine wars, has never failed to per- 
sonify Roman orthodoxy in its most inflexible rigour. I 
considered that task as a part of that which I have here to 
fulfil. I departed for Spain, without the support of any 
one, and much against the advice and wishes of all my 
friends, who, in theu* anxiety foreboded only ruin and disaster 
to me in that land of misery. But, assm'edly, I should not 
open my mouth upon tliis subject, if I did not know that, 
while I was rambhng over and investigating the most in- 
hospitable Sierras, alone, and (I must say) more than once in 
danger of my life, it happened that falsehood and calumny 
were lying here in ambush against me. 

In fact, what did they say and print ? This, and a smile 
will be my only answer : they said and printed, not only in 
France but abroad, that I had received an official diplomatic 



8 



THE SUPERLATIVELY CATHOLIC 



mission; that tliis dumb mission was for the pui*pose of 
leaving this chair empty, and that I had gone by com- 
plaisance to thi'ow myself into the furnace of Spain, probably 
into the blockade of some bombarded town. I shall not in- 
sult any one of my hearers by thinking that he could for a 
moment give credit to such clownish inventions ; I will not 
admit what would be discom-aging for every body, that false- 
hood, by underhand contrivances, coidd so soon have pre- 
vailed against so many words which from my conscience have 
passed into yom's. 

Suppose they had come and said to me, at five hundred 
leag-ues from here : "I bring you sad news ; the youth of 
France have abandoned their colour's ; it was blue, henceforth 
it will be white : everything has changed ; they have gone 
over to the enemy ; what they approved of in you, they now 
deny ; here are the proofs, they are striking, — evident." If 
any one had come to me ^vith such language, I should have 
answered, — " No, it cannot be ; because I know those of 
whom you speak; because I have felt my whole existence 
blended with theirs in decisive moments which never return, 
but which are never forgotten. Now, that esteem which I 
entertain for my auditors, I feel I have some right to expect 
from them ; hence it happens that I have carried my con- 
tempt for theii- falsehood so far as to neglect to contradict it. 
It would be doing too much honour to wickedness, to allow 
that every invention mns the risk of being admitted as true, 
provided it be calumnious, and that the life and works of 
a man cannot shelter him for a moment. 

Two reasons impelled me towards Spain. The first is an 
entirely literary one. The books of a modem nation may be 
for me the object of a private study ; but, I make it a matter 
of conscience to say nothing about them in public, so long as 
I have not touched mth my hands, and seen, with my own 
eyes, the places, monuments, things, and men, who are the 
perpetual commentary of them. To speak at my ease of the 
expeditions of the Catholic Kings, I had need to have fol- 



KINGDOM OP SPAIN. 



9 



lowed their footsteps tlirougli the passes of the moimtams ; I 
should not know Philip II. without having seen the Escuiial; 
and it is in the mosques of Toledo* and Andalusia, that I 
understood all the Mahometan spiiit of the Christianity of 
Calderon. 

My second and, perhaps, principal reason, was the neces- 
sity I was under of studjdng the situation of the Spanish 
Church. In the war canied on against us by the men of 
the past, I wished to meet with that famous Spanish and 
Portuguese fanaticism, to examine it closely, interrogate it, 
and seek it in its ashes. Does it thi-eaten to re'\dYe ? Has 
the clamour of om* theological quarrels aroused it again? 
Does it accept the alliance ? Is it also preparing, on its side, 
to fetter the mind of Southern Em'ope ? This is what was 
indispensable for me to know. 

I will state, at once, that the comiction to which I came 
upon this point is, that the mass of the Spanish clergy un- 
derstand nothing, yet, of the complicated tactics of the clergies 
in the North. So many subtle discussions, and ecclesiastical 
books, pamphlets, and papers, frighten simple men who do not 
read, and who are apt to consider every new work as a heresy. 
They no longer recognize their old Chm'ch under the half- 
plulosopliical costume which is put on among us by the 
Chm-ch militant; and they instinctively mistrust so many 
new weapons which they know not how to handle. 

The crucifix and the sabre are still the natm-al anns of the 
great mass of these Christians descended from Mahomet ; 
beyond that, everything seems to them a snare and danger for 
their faith. 

Accordingly, they have remained, up to the present day, 
perfectly dead to the appeals of foreign priests and theologians. 
Whether it be an instinct of tradition, or a national obstinacy, 
the CatJiolic kingdom puts no faith in the present reaction, 
which seems to it to be too much confused abstractions 



* The Church of Maria la Blanca. 
B 5 



10 



THE SUPEULATIVELY CATHOLIC 



and reasonings. Tlie new colonring, boiTowed from tlie art 
of the laity, disconcerts men accustomed to tlie Inquisition ; 
to speak frankly, the Spanish clergy, far from acceptmg, 
till now, the intimate alliance ^Y^th the French clergy, are 
very much inclined to suspect them of novelties, philosophy, 
eclectism, pantheism, and doctrinarism, if these words have 
yet crossed the Pyrenees. 

What has Spain been for the last two centmies and a haK? 
A country destined to serve as a theatre for the most decisive 
experiment imaginable upon the efficacy of Ultramontane 
doctrines left to themselves. Every particular project of 
reaction disappears before tliis reaction of a whole race of 
men. 

The genius of the past, in the sixteenth centmy, musters 
its strength, settles, and takes root in Spain, in face of New 
Em-ope, Protestantism, and Philosophy; and like a bull 
baited in the cii'cus, shows fight to the crowd. The people 
and the king understand each other. For two hundi-ed years, 
this country swears that not one new idea or sentiment shall 
cross its frontier, and this oath is kept. In order that the doc- 
trines of Ultramontanism and the Council of Trent may show 
what they can elfect by themselves, for the salvation of modern 
nations, this country is given up, abandoned to them, without 
reserve ; the very angels of Mahomet will watch from the 
summits of the Arab towers of Toledo and the Alhambra, in 
order that no ray of the new word may penetrate into the 
enclosure. Burinng stakes are prepared ; and every man who 
invites the future shall be reduced to ashes. Seville boasts 
that she alone burnt sixteen thousand men in twenty years. 
This is not yet enough ! The countiy thus shut up must be 
occupied by a great king, Philip II., an impertm'bable soul, 
in whom the genius of reaction is personified. The pencils 
of Titian and Eubens have not been able to enliven, with a 
single gleam of sunshine, that pale, sinister countenance, that' 
royal spectre, the inflexible monarch of a dead society. 

This king, in order the better to escape from the murmur 



KINGDOM OF SPAIN. 



11 



of new life, founds, with one word, Ms capital at Madiid, in 
a desert ; lie leads, he drags his people, as much as he can, 
into a Thebaid. For his part, he escapes even from this 
faint noise of life ; at the foot of the rocks of the Escui'ial he 
gathers aroimd him fom* himdi-ed monks of the order of Saint 
Jerome, who work, day and night, to separate him from the 
land of the hving. He has his cell built in the centre of the 
church, — at the foot of the high altar, — ^in a cellar where day- 
light, mingled with the gleam of wax-candles, scarcely pene- 
trates. This sepulchre is his habitation ! And from this 
damp, dark tomb, issues that spuit of reaction, that icy soul, 
which, Hke a poison distilled from this royal serpent, and 
filtered into the very extremities of Spaia, suddenly stops the 
pulsation of that gi'eat and, till then, impassioned Castdian 
heart, where Ai'abia had kindled her flame. 

This seal set upon the soid of Spain was so powerful, that 
it passed unimpaired through the two last centmies. How 
then was this machine of reaction broken up ? By whom ? 
"VYhat man ? or, what nation ? This is, in my opinion, the 
most extraordinary feature in contemporaneous history. 

The spuit of France, at length, meets the spuit of reaction 
face to face in Spain, during those tenible campaigns of 
Napoleon, from 1809 to 1813j the nineteenth centmy comes 
to blows with the fifteenth, and Napoleon wrestles with the 
phantom of Philip II. The holy militia marches forth from 
the monasteries, with the cross in one hand and a carbine in 
the other. It finds again in the mosques the warhke soul of 
Mahomet. The Church and Democracy seal their mystic 
union, faster than ever, in the blood of Saragossa. We all 
have some of om- friends in the sterile plains of Ocanna, 
Vittoria, and Talavera. The monks are masters of the 
field ; they have slain the soldiers of France. The reaction, 
inaugiuated by Philip II., has received its crown ; the vic- 
torious Chm-ch of Spain has now only to enjoy her empire 
uncontested. That seems to you the natm-al com'se of things; 
but what happened was just the contrary; the Spanish 



13 



THE SUPERLATIVELY CATHOLIC 



Church, intoxicated mth joy after the fall of Napoleon, 
perished in the triumph of Spain. 

In effect, amid that universal frenzy, the people address the 
Chui'ch, by a hundred thousand voices, sa^dng : " Chm'ch of 
Spain, I defended you at Burgos, Ocanna, and SomosieiTa ; I 
gained you the victory at Baylen and Yittoria ; I have saved 
and avenged you ; I have filled your cup to the brim wdth the 
blood of France ; and, with tliis blood, we offer you a funeral 
libation. A^Qiilst all other nations have chosen other guides, 
I alone remained faithful ; I wished to have, and I sought 
only you, to enter into new life. And now, when all your 
enemies are dead, pronounce for me a word, a single word of 
life. Lead me towards the futm-e, which others speak of, 
but you alone possess. I am naked in mind as well as body ; 
clothe me with your splendom\ Church of Saint Dominick, 
Saint Theresa, and Peter of Alcantara, pronounce one of 
those fieiy words which work miracles, and that the saints 
used formerly to utter to our fathers." 

But, at these entirely new words spoken from the heart of 
a nation, the Chm^ch of Spain remained thunderstruck, and 
speechless ; she knew not what to answer ; she did not even 
understand this language. How could she have made a single 
effort to satisfy a spiiitual and social want, of which she 
had never suspected the existence ? She shut her brazen 
gates behind her, and vanished, as if spontaneously, in the 
monasteries ; whence no prayer, not even one sigh, was utter- 
ed for that nation starving for hope. At that moment, the 
Spanish people understood that the Chm'ch and they had se- 
parate lives ; they put their hopes beyond her, separated fi'om 
her, and sought elsewhere the present and the future. 

If a more precise reason for this mii'aculous fall of the 
Spanish Church be required, I will present one in aU its sim- 
plicity. As long as the war lasted, the Clergy answered the 
spirit of theii* country and their time. In battle, these mqu 
could pronounce the word of hatred and extermination ; they 
felt something holy in the combat, and this is why I honour 



KINGDOM or SPAIN. 



13 



them. They were the men of the Old Testament, of the an- 
cient covenant, the priests of the god of battles, Allah and 
Jehovah, miited for a moment under the same banner ; and, 
as in the Old Testament, they crushed the head of their enemy 
against the wall ; theii' glory is, that they stained their purple 
robes with our blood. But when the battle was over, those 
lips, accustomed to the hymn of hatred, could not pronounce 
the word of peace, reconciliation, and alliance. They had 
made a^gueiilla-weapon of theii* crucifix ; and they could not 
discover, in that exterminating Christ, the pastor of the 
world. 

How could they reconcile the living, who knew not how to re- 
concile the dead ? It is true they plant a cross upon the road, 
or in the street, on the spot where a man has been assassi- 
nated ; but they have not even thought of fixing a single one 
upon those vast battle-fields, those immense bmial-gTounds, 
of which they do not understand the sense, and over which 
the spirit of extermination is still hovering. 

It is commonly believed, that the clergy have fallen because 
they made no use of their hands, but left their lands unculti- 
vated ! Not so ! "What the noble Spanish people expected 
fi-om those men, was not the work of then- hands, but the work 
of the soul ; and this is what was wanting. As intellectual 
workmen, the clergy were not asked to dig canals, or construct 
manufactories ; they were recjuked only to shed a new moral 
life, to come out of the old law, and produce from the rock 
the fountain of the spuit. 

And where are you now, you legions of guerilla-monks, so 
formidable in war, so impotent in peace ? Heroic monks, 
where are you ? What has become of you ? I have sought 
you ever;y"where, in yom* monasteries and in yom* cells, about 
the tomb of Philip II. and in the Escmial, but I found not 
one ; I have knocked at the gates of innumerable Chartreuses* 
and convents of every order, in cities, and in desert places. 

* Carthusian monasteries ; hence the English word Charter-house. 
—C. C. 



14 



THE SUPERLATIVELY CATHOLIC 



I have called, but no one lias answered. I have shaken open 
the gates, and entered; from Biscay down to Andalusia, 
and in Portugal, I have found, thanks to you, the cloisters of 
the Gospel more deserted and dilapidated than the Alhambra 
of the Koran. I heard only the hammer of the workman, 
who was demolishing those walls without anger and without 
regret ; I have seen the storm-beaten crucifix facing the 
mosques of Moorish Kings, hanging in the aii- above the ruins 
of its church. I Avislied to touch the bones of the great cap- 
tain of Catholic kings, Gonzalvo of Cordova ; but those bones 
have been pillaged in the Chartreuse of Grenada. Near the 
place where people were bmied at Madrid, I heard a pubhc 
eulogy of Yoltaire ; the palaces of the Inquisition are every- 
where tm'ned into theatres ; even those hermit figm-es of Ziu*- 
baran and Mm-illo, who formerly peopled the cloisters, had 
disappeared. 

I wanted to meet with a monk in Spain, cost what it would ; 
but I was not able to find one. Only, here and there, in by- 
roads I met with a few men, who, divested of their ecclesias- 
tical costume, and starving, asked charity of me in a broken 
voice ; they were all that remained of the militia of Philip II. 

WiU so manifest a lesson be at length understood ? Would 
to God that om- clergy might comprehend it ! For, in this 
matter, it is not I, but things that speak. The Spanish Church 
wished to be alone, without any one to contradict her. She 
succeeded in making a desert around her. Philosophy, Pro- 
testantism, dissenting minds, science, — everything was cursed 
by her ; and everything was sacrificed to her. But it hap- 
pened, that these men of the past lost themselves in this 
absolute lonehness ; they wished to sterilize the modem 
world ; and the sterility began in themselves. In delivering 
themselves from their adversaries, they became severed from 
life ; and in pretending to kill the new man, theii' blows feU 
upon themselves. 

When the Church thus retired from the conduct of alfairs, 
the Spanish people did not, on that account, abandon them- 



KINGDOM OF SPAIX. 



15 



selves. They liad blindly followed in tlie desert tlie pillar of 
iire as long as it liad gHmmered ; when that flambeau died 
out with the war, what remained for them to do ? One single 
and truly heroic action : instantly to embrace, without any 
dehberation, the thought, symbol, and futm-e of theii' enemy, 
the French nation, with which they had just mingled their 
blood. This spectacle is, I believe, unparalleled in the world ! 
In 1812, at the moment when wounded France bleeds in all 
the passes of Spain, the mind of France takes root and shoots 
forth fi'om one end of Spain to the other. Those illustrious 
gueriHa-chiefs, Eiego, Empecinado, and Porlier, wlio had 
waged war so valiantly against us, those new martyi-s whom 
the Chm-ch does not know, but whose names are inscribed in 
golden letters upon the walls of the Cortes, imbibe the soul, 
the belief of om- fathers and brothers wounded and dying 
under their blows. 

People inquii'e whence comes that supernatural impulse 
which is agitating Spain in every direction. That inspiration 
proceeds from the ashes of every Frenchman who has fallen 
under the standard of the innovating spirit ; wheresoever one 
of our nation fell, a new soul animates the bosom of old 
Spain. The soul of our dead, an invisible legion, stalks like 
a messenger of the fatm-e upon the sierras, along the plains, 
and over the whole smface of the land. These dead men 
have awakened the living, and aroused them with an iiTe- 
sistible tempest. The citizen and the soldier feel themselves 
unexpectedly seized with the spirit of hfe, without knowing 
whence it comes ; it is the blood of young France speaking 
and crying thi'oughout that long road, from the Pyi-enees 
down to the island of Leon ! 

K I have been clear till now, it is evident that there are in 
Spain two societies, everywhere face to face ; you find there, 
at every step, and under every shape, the epoch of the Cid 
and that of Napoleon, — the middle ages and the nineteenth 
century. How are they to pass from one to the other ? This 
is now the vital question. 



16 



THE SUPERLATIVELY CATHOLIC 



Other nations, who have been born to new life, in order to 
cross from one shore to the other, have passed thi'ough what 
is called a philosopliical period ; by which, they designate the 
sacred movement of the mind and soul in the modern world. 
Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, and we must certainly pronounce 
also the great name of Luther, those men, execrated in their 
time by mere practitioners, have been the missionaries of their 
nations ; they have converted the world to new life ; they have 
been what St. Boniface and St. Patrick had been in former 
times; they have prepared the way for the word of the 
futm'e. But Spain has not had one of these missionaries ; no 
one, among her offspring, has taught her the way to that spi- 
ritual liberty, to which she aspii'ed without knowing it. You 
■vvOl not find in her literature a single philosophical line ; it is 
the ideal of what some persons demand in om' time, the abso- 
lute triumph of official theology, even in her poetry. Spain 
wanted to be saved only by her two patronesses, the Chm-ch 
and Eoyalty ; yet, both abandoned her. And are you still 
sm-prised that a nation, left or betrayed by her natural guides, 
should be torn by intestine war, without finding either peace 
or truce ? Ah ! when the French Eevolution marched forth 
with a fu'm step, she had, at least, before her eyes the standard 
of her philosophers. 

Yet, we must not believe that Spain has nothing to do in 
the world, or that she can bring nothing new. Her society 
has a form peculiar to herself; being cast better than any 
other in the mould of the CathoKc dogma, tliis country was a 
sort of social trinity composed of the Chm-ch, Monarchy, and 
Democracy. The two first elements failed her at the same 
time ; the third alone escaped : thence came Anarchy. And 
perhaps it was not without design that Spain was gradually 
deprived of her gold, so that she is now become the most 
beggarly and naked of nations. The insolence of the rich 
and the jealousy of the poor cannot exist where poverty is 
the condition of eveiybody! Social war, at least, remains 
unknown. Heroic and nobly- supported poverty, that may 



KINGDOM OF SPAIN. 



17 



create tlie glon^ of this coimtry if its legislators are able to 
understand it ! Wliat, in fact, is poverty-stmck Spain, when 
compared to all the other nations of present Europe, who 
look upon her with pity ? We must give her her real name. 
Spain is a nation of paupers, a monarch of paupers, an empire 
of paupers I Let her but have the corn-age to accept this 
name, and once more she may astonish the world under a 
new form. 

However it may be, confess it is quite time to cease for 
ever those declamations against the temerity of reason and 
the soul, the impotency of philosophy, — what more? — the 
ambition of novelties, that is to say, against all the incon- 
veniences of the life of the spiiit created by Christianity itself. 
Here is a gi-eat nation which, by your ad^dce, renounced 
everything, and blindfolded herself; she followed you, with- 
out once turning aside, as long as you would ; and when she 
awakes, the first thing she sees in the abyss, is her Church 
being chastised, and visibly falling to pieces under the rod of 
an avenging angel ! And that nation tuims round and round, 
giddy in her own blood : the som-ces of physical and spiritual 
life are both dried up ; she is shut out from earth as well as 
fi'om heaven ; and all despaii' of her, except perhaps herself. 

I have just said that being abandoned and left destitute 
by the old spiiitual authority, Spain embraced the spiiit of 
France. Once more, with their eyes shut, that people turn 
towards the light which animates them; they follow it, 
groping their way, and Tvithout discussing. There residts 
from this a fact which, if I had needed it, would have sin- 
gularly confirmed my belief : which is, that we are, not only 
responsible for om'selves, but, moreover, for those nations 
which march after us, and seek everwhere om- traces. 
Admit that France remains in immobility : anarchy imme- 
diately begins among them; that France retreats a single 
step, and you trample back into an abyss, a chaos, those 
nations which are following you ; that is to say, we cannot 
deny ourselves, mthout thro^ving the world into confusion. 



18 



THE SUPERLATIVELY CATHOLIC 



If the impassioned leaven of reaction wliicli is fermenting 
among us should pass from here to Spain, do yon compre- 
hend, do yon imagine, what would take place ? Among us, 
words are fiery and as shai-p as aiTOWs ; but the softness 
of our manners prevents their being stained vith blood. 
Imagine a Spanish archbishop, with fom* of his suft'ragan 
bishops, in a moment of fermentation, uniting to denounce, 
by their names, two men to the hatred of a Spanish king, 
and to the passions of a Spanish pro^dnce ; do you believe 
that a thing so little conformable to the habits of Chi'istian 
prelates could happen without inconveniences?* 

Among us, the reaction mingled -v^dth philosophy tries to 
get back possession of the mind by invisible means. Do you 
see, in Spain, after a political counter-revolution, those monks 
of whom I spoke to you just now, arise from their ashes at 
the cry of war, and attempt, with then* former fiuy, and like 
people playing their last stake, the auto-da-f4 of the nine- 
teenth centuiy ? Alas ! I do not demand their perdition ; 
I have sympathised with tlieu* miseiy. I said so to those 
whom I met, and I told them the truth. I do not ask that 
the shelter of their seclusion shoidd be denied them; but 
they must bring back to it a new soul, instructed, enlarged, 
and purified by sorrow, not a soul of anger and vengeance. 
If the door be opened again, let it be to the inspiration of 
the futm-e, and not to the icy hand of hardened lifeless beings 
who win not rise from the dead. 

Whilst the Spanish clergy, still astonished at their own 
decline, do not find in themselves the poAver to move, the 
question is agitated for them everywhere else. The snare is 
set throughout the rest of Em-ope. See what is passing in 
the North : those illustrious universities of Germany no longer 
say one word. Even at Berlin, a kind of torpor envelops the 
minds of men, and becomes, in many of them, a sort of 

* In allusion to a late attack made by the Archbishop of Paris, &c. 
upon the author and Mr. Michelet. — C. C. 



KINGDOM OF SPAIN. 



19 



worldly politeness ; at Municli, it is reckoned good taste no 
longer to think, and spiiitual death is a courtly fashion. 
Where will this slumber end ? Will the Germans at length 
understand that it is time to forget the rancom* of 1815, and 
that everything is not bad in the tradition of our friends who 
died at Leipsic ? If the alliance of the Trench mind with the 
EngHsh mind produced grand ideas in the eighteenth century, 
I certainly confess, I believed, a long time, that the alliance of 
Germany and France might equally honour- the nineteenth. I 
believed that the Catholicism of Napoleon and the Eeform of 
Luther, Descartes, and Leibnitz, were worthy to join hands 
from either bank of the Ehine. 

I believed this holy league was the strongest rampart against 
the pretensions of the past, from whatever quarter they came ; 
this opinion, good or bad, has made me more than one enemy ; 
and yet it gives me pain to renounce it. 

Once more, I make here an appeal to German thinkers and 
writers ; let them cast aside the leaven of hatred henceforth 
void of gTandeur. The Spaniards, who are said to be so im- 
placable, entertain no sort of resentment against us ; their 
land, thank God, is cloyed with om- blood : and has not the 
soil of Germany drunk enough ? In what are the Germans 
surpassed by the Spaniards ? What is certain is, that hatred 
belongs to the past ; alliance is the futm-e. 

There exists, very near us, a symptom of that so much 
desired association of the minds of several races of men, in the 
combat which the genius of darkness is endeavouring to bring 
back. I must state, and hail as an important fact, what is 
passing at a few paces from here, within the very walls of this 
CoUege of France. The fh'st Sclavonic poet, our dear, heroic 
friend Mickiewitz, is, in the name of the Sclavonians, contend- 
ing, in his own holy language, for a cause which is vei-y often 
confounded with oiu' own. Who ever heard a more sincere, 
religious. Christian, or extraordinary language than that of 
this exile, amid the remnants of his nation, like the prophet 
under the ^villows ? Alas ! if the soul of the saints and mar- 



THE SUPERLATIVELY CATHOLIC 



tyi's of Poland be not wifh liim, I know not where it is. But 
above all, who has ever spoken of oui' country, Prance, with 
such filial tenderness as this son of Poland ? Let us return 
him thanks ! Those men, those brothers in arms, have ever 
been in the vanguard of om* armies ; it is but just that in the 
movement of Prance, they should still wish to be in the van- 
guard of the futm'e. 

In fact, everybody understands instmctively that, in this 
last game, the question must be decided in Prance. The 
threads of the reaction all end here, because they know weE, 
that, if this country abandoned itself, the spirit of death would 
pounce upon the West as upon a sure prey. Do you know 
what they propose to us ? Tliis, simply : om' fathers made a 
precipitate retreat from Moscow to Leipsic, from Leipsic to 
Waterloo, from Waterloo to Paris ; and the wound still bleeds. 
They propose to their sons to follow and resume the move- 
ment, to continue the retreat, but a retreat a hundi*ed times 
more miserable, since, the question is to lose, in one day, all 
our moral territory, to abandon the spiritual frontiers, after 
having lost om* material ones, to wind up all concessions, 
all routs by a last concession, one final rout ; in a word, to fly 
in disorder even beyond the Eome of Loyola. 

And I, on the contrary, declare, that the way to raise the 
gi'and standard again, is to elevate the soid, to trample the 
di'ead of spectres under om* feet, to be brave in spiritual things 
as oui' fathers were in deeds of war ! 

That no one may be deceived, I must show, by one word, 
what I mean by this language ; that is to say, the tendency 
of these lectm'es. I see about me divers manners of worship, 
all waging a fmious warfare against each other, and pretend- 
ing to live in a complete sequestration, and mutually excom- 
municating and repudiating one another. If their instinct of 
solitude alone was listened to, no tie existing between them, 
society would be dissolved. They wish each for a separate 
instruction, and I do not blame them for it ; for each lives in 
a distinct world. What I attempt here, is to speak to all, to 



KINGDOM OF SPAIN. 



21 



re-ascend to that source of life wMcli is common to all ; to 
teacli, to spell, to speak tlie language of tliat city of alliance, 
whicli, in spite of the anger of a few men, is being built up and 
fortified every day ; for it is not true that it is built, as they 
say, upon indifference, but much rather upon the conscious- 
ness of the identity of spiritual life in the modem world ! 
And weak as I am, whence comes it that I do not despair of 
continuing this task ? In one word, for this reason, which is 
my whole secret : 

I feel that, in this sacred work, I am profoundly in accord- 
ance with the spirit of the laws, rights, revolutions and institu- 
tions of France ; and this sentiment, which I may also safely 
call rehgious, m'ges me on, and makes me march forward. 
By giving the same rights, the same name, and the same 
position in the city of Kfe to the divided members of the reli- 
gious family, France has displayed a more Chiistian senti- 
ment than they have who continued to curse ; thereby she 
has entered, further than any body, into the idea of the uni- 
versal Church ; she has found herself at last, so to speak, 
more Cathohc than Eome. She has given up a new world 
to the work of the mind ; and by placing myself under the 
banner of this idea of alliance which, deposited for ever in 
our country and its institutions, forms, as it were, a pro- 
fession of faith, I also believe I am obeying the will of God, 
manifested and impressed by so many shocks upon the con- 
sciousness of a nation. 

The reaction, full of hatred, though attempted everywhere, 
can succeed nowhere ; because, being deadly to France, it is 
deadly to Europe, and deadly to the progTess of truly religious 
life. 



SECOND LECTURE. 



POLITICAL RESULTS OF CATHOLICISM IN SPAIN. 



SPAIN RECEIVES A TWO-FOLD EDUCATION BY 
CHRISTIANITY AND ULTRAMONTANISM. 

Maech 27, 1844. 

I WAS armed against unjust prejudices; but not against 
those unexpected proofs of sympatliy wliich I have received 
from you, and the half of which are addi-essed to Mi'. 
Michelet, who, in my absence, has so well developed and 
vi^dfied our common belief. I do not believe any man would 
be equal to support often such impressions ; for my part, I 
confess, I was ovei-whehned by them. It is sad for me to 
have only a discourse to ojffer in return for such enthusiastic 
sympathy ; it is by actions I should wish to answer you. In 
telling you I entirely belong to you, you learn notliing but 
what you knew before ; but if a few words, which have no 
other merit than sincerity, have penetrated so quickly into 
your minds, how easy would it not be for otliers, on some 
great occasion, to re-animate the heart of this country ! 
Scarcely have I been able to collect, without order, without 
any art, the observations which will form the lecture of the 
day. If I considted only my own powers, it is most certain 
I ought to renounce the idea of appearing to-day in this 
cliair. 



POLITICAL BESULTS, ETC. 



23 



If we reflect, ever so little, on the religious situation of the 
Western — and particularly of the Southern nations, it is im- 
possible not to remark the entirely new attitude of the Catho- 
lic clergy in those countries. In the middle ages, whenever 
the Chm'ch thought she had reason to complain of a king- 
dom, the idea never struck her, that she was to separate 
from it for ever ; she threatened, and even chastised it, in 
order to bring it again under her power. The interdict fell, 
equally heavy, upon the kingdom, and upon each of the 
individuals who composed it ; the more absolute the menace, 
the more visible the hope of reconciliation. They struck 
every part in order to re-conquer the whole. But now, as 
this hope is declining, they have formed thoughts which 
would have broken the hearts of the saints of the middle 
ages. It is the State itself they appear to renounce. Any 
intimacy with it becomes an insupportable yoke, every day 
they find it necessary to endeavour to break off a part of that 
intercourse which they had accepted with joy when they had 
the hope of getting back everything. By adhering to indi- 
viduals, they expect to reduce the pohtical body to a mere 
shadow ; and if we will not be the most improvident of men, 
we ought to suppose the possibihty of an order of things, in 
which the Church and State would be entii'ely separate, and 
to accept, beforehand, the defiance they hmi to us of being 
able to live. 

Of what does their menace consist ? Behold it in all its 
gi'avity. The Chmxh is very near saying to us what she has 
already said to Spain : I have ties of sympathy with persons, 
individuals, but I have no longer any wdth Prance. Let her 
follow her destiny as she pleases ; whether she live or die, I 
have withdi'awn from her ; I no more belong to the State, 
that abstract personage, that new-fashioned nationahty which 
I no longer know. I animated that great kingdom with my 
breath for ages ; I had become identified with it ; but I am 
no longer mistress there ; from this moment I separate from 
it, and envelop myself in my eternity. Let us see how that 



24 



POLITICAL EESULTS OF 



body, wliicli, for ilfteen ages, rested upon me, will now sup- 
port itself without me. 

Such is, in its simple grandeui', tlie question impending 
over us, and which cannot fail, one day or other, to burst 
forth. Catholicism, still attached to the individuals of this 
kingdom, but separating herself from the eldest daughter of 
the Church, and abandoning her like Hagar in the desert, is 
a probability, nay a possibility, wliich we must absolutely 
foresee. And, thence, what foUows ? 

We, who do not detach om-selves so easily from that moral 
personage, Prance ; we, who take her for om- patroness, who 
cannot desert her without an unpardonable ciime ; we, who 
believe unanimously that there is something sacred in a 
nationality, and that no state can live mthout a divine foun- 
dation, in what situation do we find om'selves? In the 
necessity of seeking whether, amid the lonehness with which 
we are threatened, we have still a large share of God's 
favom- left ; whether, in that destitution which they announce 
to us, we shall not find a religious foundation for laws, 
science, art, and all the elements of modern life; whether 
this Hagar, threatened to die thii'sting for God, will see no 
fountain springing up by her side ; in one word, whether 
Catholicism, by withdi-awing from modern States, deprives 
them of every religious principle of existence and dm-ation. 

Without saying more, you see what sort of questions arise 
before us, a hundi'ed times more formidable than those we 
have hitherto met -with. I shall dare handle them, not 
without fear (for what serious mind can handle such things 
without apprehension?), but with the firmness inspired by 
the conviction of seeking, and appealing only to, truth. Yes, 
we must have the heart to enter upon these questions. Our 
time, necessity, the very wants of yom- minds, urge us towards 
them ; and, for my part, I shall but abandon myself to the 
natm*al com'se of the thoughts which have been the constant 
occupation of my life, and which, mostly, I used to repress 
in this assembly. For om' adversaries are right sometimes, 



CATHOLICISM IN SPAIN. 



25 



and I am glad to say so : instruction and education are 
things which cannot be separated. We ought not to teach 
here only literatm-e, history, the erudite and material tradition 
of humanity ; we ought moreover to nourish and awaken the 
soul, and bring science back to that exalted source where it 
is one with the principle of moral life : that is what every 
one has the right to require of us. 

In entering upon tliis task, I have displayed religious Spain ; 
let us, to-day, speak of political Spam. I have been permitted 
to see that great country at one of those moments when all 
springs of action are laid bare : a di'ama in the government, 
more extraordinary than all those of Calderon ; incredible 
discussions, which, after so many unforeseen e^^nts, have 
once more disconcerted Em'ope, and of which I did not lose a 
single syllable. Being a stranger to every party, I sought 
truth among them all ; perhaps, some day, I shall attempt to 
, relate, in a direct manner, what I saw. But divesting, in 
tliis place, both these impressions and these facts of every 
private cu-cmnstance, and raising them impartially to that 
general form which alone is suitable in this chair, here is what 
I think I may say of the spirit and political natm'e of Spain. 

Catholicism left its stamp upon the Peninsula at every 
moment of its dm-ation ; and, as it was in the middle ages 
an element of liberty, and from the sixteenth centmy an ele- 
ment of reaction, it has impressed this double character upon 
the sold of Spain. There are, as it were, two men in every 
Spaniard : an Independent of the time of the Comiuutitfi, and 
a subject fashioned by Philip II. From that union of inde- 
pendence and obedience, arise those contradictions which 
astonish you. The same man who yesterday was greedy of 
respect, is to-day greedy of obedience, if not of servitude. 
You think him inconsistent and of a tickle character. You 
must not accuse him of that ; he l)ears within him two per- 
sons, two periods, the middle ages and the reaction of the 
sixteenth centmy ; the equilibrium of the modern world has 
not vet been effected within hini. 

c 



26 



POLITICAL RESULTS OF 



If anarcliy be in tlie individual, we must not be surprised 
to find it also in the State ; only, do not expect it to have the 
same character as in other countries. One of the members of 
the Cortes, the most decided to combat it, remarked to me 
at Madi'id, '■^Anarchy is amiable among m<s." In fact, as the 
reaction, for two centmies, has reduced that coimtry to the 
utmost miseiy, anarchy may increase without disturbing any 
one interest. Having neither factories nor manufactories, 
they leave the plough to take the carbine ; and, again, in 
harvest-time, soldiers transform themselves into agriculturists. 
They had pursued the enemy a long time, and fought occa- 
sionally ; they return home and find nothing changed : the 
com is ripe and their subsistence secure ; this is the life of 
the middle ages ; you can easily imagine that a life thus con- 
stituted may last a long time. 

Moreover, it is not a war between huts and castles. There 
is not a single castle in Spain. I went from Bayonne to Cadiz 
without being able to find the least remnant of castle-keep or 
feudal manor. If you inquire about ruins, the people know 
no other but those of the Moors. The soil of Spain has not 
preserved a single trace of the sway of the nobility; that 
land, in this respect, with all its misery and nakedness, is 
the most dignified in Europe. Being in many parts un- 
peopled, without land-marks in her fields, and without either 
hedges, walls, or ruins, she bears upon her brow the imma- 
culate pride of the desert. 

Where are the gi'andees of Spain ? Where is the illustrious 
Spanish nobility? — Nobody could tell me. Either having 
joined the revolution, or having been absorbed by it, they 
have disappeared, loyally and simply, mthout attempting to 
dissemble their ruin ; they do not even endeavom-, as in other 
countries, to survive by the privilege of convenances^ good 
taste, or what we might call the conspiracy of good manners ; 
which is generally the last refuge of a degenerate nobility. 
Where politeness is general, and the very manners of the 
people are superlatively distinguished, this last privilege does 



CATHOLICISM IN SPAIN. 



27 



not exist. Besides, in a country tliat owns eiglit liundred 
thousand nobles, everybody, as a matter of coui'se, is of tbis 
number. This politeness, this general ui'banity of tbe nation, 
indicates a spirit of equality wbicb is tbe very basis of tbeir 
manners. This character is so extraordinarily impressed i:i 
everything, that, in order to explain it, we must go back to 
the most vital events of the past in the history of Spain. 

How is it that the Spanish people, who seem to be behind 
all others in so many respects, are more advanced in this 
fundamental point? This is certainly the reason. Eepre- 
senting, as they did, in the middle ages, the idea of Chris- 
tianism against Islamism, no other nation of that time re- 
ceived more seriously the living idea of Christianity. In 
presence of the Koran, the Spanish people identified them- 
selves with the Gospel ; they considered themselves, in the 
manner of the Hebrews, as the chosen people. In the sierras 
of Andalusia, the mountaineers, wishing to know whether I 
spoke Spanish, asked me whether I spoke Christian, — Jiabla 
Cristiano ? During that struggle of eight centuries against 
Islamism, every man had been accustomed to consider him- 
self as a champion of Christ. My guide, in order to ask a 
question of a goat-herd, called out to him from the top of a 
rock. Chevalier ! Cahallero ! and the echo from a Moorish 
tower answered that the nobility of that man dated from the 
duel between Christ and Mahomet. When God himself is 
the subject of dispute, what becomes of the differences of 
fortunes and social conditions ? AH men are brothers upon a 
field 01 battle; but if the field be a whole country, if the 
battle last eight centmies, and the cause be that of Christ, 
around whom generations watch like sentinels, it is evident 
that the sentiment of equality under the banner of the 
Eternal, that of communion by blood, must be impressed in 
an indestructible manner upon the heart of that people, and 
become the very basis of theii- natm-e. All the gold of Mexico 
has been unable to change it. 

This sentiment of religious brotherhood is the purest result 
c 2 



38 



POLITICAL RESULTS OF 



of the education of Spain, the one she onght most to cherish, 
and which she is not permitted to sacrifice, under any pre- 
text, to any form of govermnent : it is the mark of the finger 
of God in her history. 

Here we arrive at one of the greatest difficulties in the 
establishment of the representative government in Spain. 
The mass of the nation has not yet pronounced ardently in 
favour of this administration ; they even showed some repug- 
nance in the beginning. Why is that ? If they remained so 
strongly attached to the idea of the power of one, it was not 
through the mere love of despotism. No ; but with an abso- 
lute power, they see all others placed upon the same level, 
and, consequently, the ancient equality preserved and saved. 
On one side the people, on the other the absolute king, neto : 
Castilian pride is pleased Avith this unintermediate disposition. 
But, by naming deputies, senators, or representatives, do they 
not run the risk of inflicting upon themselves superiors, mas- 
ters, and petty crownless kings? Such is the idea which 
secretly haunts the country people in the Peninsula. The repre- 
sentative government will establish itself solidly on the other 
side of the Pyrenees, only by fully insming that instinct of 
equality which is the produce of ages, the fruit of Christianity, 
the seal of Spain ; and, if this sentiment shoidd be impaired 
or over tin-own, if, in place of it, should arise a spirit of ex- 
clusion, the feudality of money, the privilege of I know not 
what class they know not how to name, that is to say, the 
seed of social war, I believe, witli a gi'eat mass of the Spanish 
people, that it would be infinitely better that the representa- 
tive government should never be established. 

Monarchy is thus engTaved in theii* very souls as a gua- 
rantee for evangelical brotherhood, that is to say, it is emi- 
nently popular in Spain. The people contemplate and see 
themselves i eflected in their king ; and by stripping royalty 
of its illusion, many think they would dethrone themselves. 
This sentiment is even so strong, that I feel persuaded the 
Spanish monarchy can only find its dangers in itself. For a 



CATHOLICISM IN SPAIN. 



29 



great many, tlie queen is a sort of constitutional Madonna. 
Thence its pei-il, if monarchy should tliink it may dare at- 
tempt anj^thing. 

It is certain the Inquisition accustomed their minds to 
attach a sort of religious sanction to violence. They put 
political discussions to an end by the sword, as they formerly 
did discussions on theology ; they shoot instead of bui-ning ; 
it is the consequence of the same education ; nay more, we 
must add that the political auto-da-fes are, in the estimation 
of a certain number, a sure means of popularity. Beware, 
lest at length you abuse it ; for the really Chiistian thought, 
pei*vei-ted among you, rises up against you. What are you 
doing? — ^You are imitating the monks you have just chas- 
tised : ah ! do not deiile, with so much blood, that pm-e robe 
upon which the eyes of the world are fixed ! 

What could not a royal soul accomplish, upon that throne 
of Spain, if it boldly undertook the regeneration of that 
people? Everything would serve and support it; for it 
would find there none of those sinister remembrances to be 
met with in other countries : no Charles I., no Louis XVL, 
the memoiy of whom stalks like a ghost before their succes- 
sors. The Spanish nation followed her kings in liberty, servi- 
tude, and even in crime. She pardoned even Ferdinand VIL 
It is by the whim of the latter that she has been agitated, by 
revolutions, at hazard, for the last ten years; the only 
example, perhaps, of a nation making a revolution in order 
to obey two lines of a prince's wiH. What more can be 
wanted ? Distrust is intelligible elsewhere ; here it would be 
impious. 

\Mien I heard what dumb sounds issued from the breast 
of that miserable crowd, and from the very bowels of the land 
of Spain, at the mere sight of the horses which di-ew along a 
crowned young gii-1, and as I followed those stifled cries that 
seemed to say, save me ! I asked myself whether such accents 
are not made to awaken in a moment, even in a child, that 
science of doing good, which great kings have never learned 



30 



POLITICAL RESULTS OF 



but from their subjects in peril. 'V^^blen, afterwards, I was 
anxious to know what they would do Avith so sacred a power, 
drawn from the identity of the people and monarchy, I was 
answered : We will make an administration such as is made 
elsewhere ; that is what we want. No doubt ; but to suc- 
ceed, you must still do something more. To pretend that all 
your efforts ought to end in giving physical nourishment to 
that crowd, accustomed to go without it for centuries, is to 
make a sad mistake. 

That nation has ever had grand occupations, high aims ; 
now, the defence of Christianity, and now, the administration 
of the New World. Since those occupations are gone, she 
languishes with disgust. You must- find for her, in your- 
selves, a new order of thoughts, a new moral world, without 
which all the combinations accompanied by mm'der to esta- 
blish physical order, will ever remain ft'iutless. This is why 
the people rush forward to meet you. In their inarticulate 
acclamations which pursue your steps, they do not ask you 
only for administrators, prefects, clerks, or patrols ; they ask 
you for whatever is now wanting — ^honour, truth, equity, 
loyalty, a remnant of ancient Spanish gi-andeur, and social 
life, of which they believe you still to be the som-ce. 

But all that is difficult to recover, say you. I own it is ! 
I began by supposing a Eoyal soul in power. 

To these symptoms of new life in Spain, we must add 
the aspect of the political assemblies ; it is too commonly 
believed that the Castilian nation has been buried under 
theii' new Charter, and that the national character has found 
no opportunity of re-appearing. The first thing you remark 
in the Cortes, in attending to the debate, is that speech is an 
aim in itself. That language had been so long fettered by 
the bonds of a dumb government, that it is even happiness 
itself for Spanish ears to catch the sound, to hear it in 
public, to try it, at eveiy tone, in the practice of modem 
things. Ah ! what woidd not Italy give, if she could only, 
with no other liberty but this, feast herself one day in 



CATHOLICISM IN SPAIN. 



31 



public witli tlie energetic forms of her political language of 
the middle ages ! 

This liberty of speech, independent of the passions it 
expresses, is already a conquest for these Southern people, 
condemned, ever since Philip II., to the silence of the cloister. 

^Mien a great question is debated, one may say that the 
general temper of Spanish eloquence is a menacing cahn, — 
something freezing, which suddenly ends in iiery accents, a 
hoarse, African intonation, words of lava, flowing on slowly, 
and enveloping the assembly. The contrast between that 
chilling tone and those tropical flashes of lightning, is sin- 
gularly powerful ; it is the character of the Spanish tragedy 
and drama. The auditory resemble the orator. 

I know not how it is, that the observation I am about to 
make, is to be met with in no traveller ; it is however im- 
possible not to be struck with this fact. "WTiatever be the 
vehemence of a debate, or the frenzy of the orator, he is never 
inten-upted by any murmur fr'om his colleagues, or by any 
one sign of sjTnpathy or aversion. 

I have been present at warlike discussions where there was, 
not only a question of life or death, but of a duel between 
royalty and one man ; frenzy, fruy and menaces were at the 
bottom of every heart aroimd me ; for a whole week, one 
party beset and provoked their opponents, ^vith cold, bitter 
invectives. AU that time, the other half of the assembly, 
those men, whose political life was thiis being tortured to the 
death, did not allow a single syllable to escape them. They 
remained as silent as marble statues. Those whose coohiess 
began to waver, were contented to retire quietly fr'om the 
hall. You would have fancied them to be resigned or indif- 
ferent ; they were, on the contraiy, at the very extremity of 
agony. This impassibility lasted tiH the moment when the 
greatest orator of Spain, rising in their name, and gathering 
and storing up aU those passions, aU those pent-up cries, 
hurled upon that assembly, for two whole days, the thunders 
of a speech wliich still burns in my memory. 



32 



POLITICAL RESULTS OF 



accents of old Castilian loyalty ! O chivali'ous passion 
of honour and tnith ! breath of Afi-ica in a Christian soid ! 
Disorder, majesty, and harmony, all met together ! In other 
places I had heard orators, but here I found a man, a heart, 
rending itself, and crying. That man, whom I do not know, 
is, at this moment, hiding his head in some mountain pass of 
Spain ; excuse me for not being able to refrain from paying 
him the tribute of a few words ; all I may now do, is not to 
pronounce his name.* 

The Spanish character, which is thus stamped upon par- 
liamentary eloquence, is marked with a no less energetical 
manner in the veiy mode of dehberation : voting. Every- 
where else, the secresy of voting has been considered as 
a guarantee for the fi-eedom of opinions ; people want to be 
free, but in mystery, on condition that nobody knows it. 
The noble pride of a Spaniard could not be abased to such an 
accommodation ; the most solemn publicity, on the contrary, 
is given there to the opinion of every man. Even on those 
occasions when menaces and fmy raise a tempest in the air, 
each, at the moment of voting, rises, and pronounces his 
vote v/ith a loud voice, adding only the monosyllable Tes or 
No, Si or No. The first time I saw, in the most perilous 
circumstances, and amid the deadly clam^om's of the tribune, 
each of these men, with his head erect, publish his opinion so 
bravely, that sight filled me with sympathy and respect, 
lleally there was something gTand in it, which brought to 
mind the noble pride of the old Cortes of the middle 
ages. What is excellent is, that the idea never seems to 
strike anybody that it is possible for the vote to be influenced 
by fear. They neither understand that it may become a 
peril for the futm-e, nor that it can be otherwise. 

These outward tokens are important; they show how 
these men take in earnest the apprenticeship of modern life ; 
besides, they are little inquisitive about what may be thought 

* I may here : it is Don Maria Joachim Lopez. 



CATHOLICISM IN SPAIN. 



33 



of them abroad, as too many passions engross their attention 
at home. 

The melancholy of some of these men is visible. What is 
the result of so many efforts, so many desperate battles, and 
so much bloodshed ! Many are disgusted with liberty, rights, 
and justice, and, according to custom, cast themselves back 
in despair into theii' old ser^dtude ; but, I warn them, they 
cannot sleep long upon that pillow. Absolute power alter- 
nately tempts and deceives the world in Spain ; it is an 
old inheritance coveted by everybody, and which exists no 
longer: there, freedom seems, at the same time, both too 
weak to be constituted, and too strong to accept the peace of 
despotism. 

This nation is mistaken in thinking ancient equality will 
be found again in a common servitude ; that was the brother- 
hood of death, and they must show a living fraternity to the 
world, if they are again to do anything. Tlie Spaniards are 
too much accustomed to think that they work and suffer for 
themselves alone. Since they broke off all connection with 
their past, they seem to look upon themselves as insulated 
from universal life. This spiiit of loneliness deprives them 
of half their strength. These men have often been found too 
proud ; I have often found them too modest. I would 
kindle in this nation the behef that the issue of then* debates 
is intimately connected wdth the destiny of others, and that 
they have, like all others, a mission in the actual world. 

Fundamentally, the indifference of the masses for pohticai 
questions proceeds from an admh-able source. These people 
after ha\ing been so long charged with the affairs and wars 
of God, find much difficulty in interesting themselves about 
anything but God. 

This contempt for human politics, compared with the 
secrets of sacred policy, is, in the peasant of Biscay and 
Astmia, almost subhmely dignified. It is from the top of 
the victorious cross that he looks in pity upon constitutional 
quaiTels. If, therefore, you would engage the masses in the 
c 5 



34 



POLITICAL RESULTS OF 



movement of these times, you must absolutely make them 
feel that the God of the Gospel is present in the questions 
of the nineteenth century, and that Spain has a place in the 
plan and sacred policy of modem times. The way of salva- 
tion for this people, is to reconcile them with themselves. 
Upon what ideas, in fact, does intellectual Spain exist ? 
Upon those which were developed by everybody in France 
twenty years ago. Those ideas, good in themselves, but 
deficient in a certain religious spirit, have been greedily 
devoured on the other side of the Pyrenees ; and those 
TO-inds having arrived in a moment at the end of their sys- 
tem, and falling into emptiness, are convulsively agitated in 
passion. 

What then must be done ? Wliat the whole age advises ; 
restore the sentiment of what is grand and divine to political 
science. For, I affirm that before God alone will Spain halt 
in her path of blood. 

It must be proved to them that the cause of the nineteenth 
century, the movement which agitates it, and the renewing 
of rights, form the old cause of God ; that there is still and 
always was a Mahometanism to combat in the world, not that 
of the Koran, but the principle of inert fatalism, wherever it 
may exist ; that the religious inspii-ation passes into the 
forms of new society ; that, in one word, if Europe, if Spain 
in particular, is dragged towards the future, it is once more 
because it is the wilt of God\ Let this be once fixed in 
their minds, and, though perhaps they may still fall through 
weariness, they will never again be discouraged, ramble at 
hazard, deny themselves by innumerable contradictions, or 
shoot one another whenever they come to a misunderstand- 
ing. Yes, Spain must, without looking back any longer, 
re-echo, in pohtical science, the old motto of her crusaders : 
It is the wilt of God ! It is the will of God ! 

A single word pronounced in this sense, in the name of 
science and philosophy, would be more efficacious upon 
the mind of Spain than aU the conspiracies and all the 



CATHOLICISM IK SPAIN. 



35 



diplomacy in the world. Let the powerful speak the word. 
For our part, let us work at least in this idea. We are 
accused of being incredulous. Alas ! the incredulous are 
those who despair* of life, and deny the possibility of any 
progressive movement in the futiu*e ; that is to say, who do 
not see the finger of Christian Providence in modern things. 



THIRD LECTURE, 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND THE STATE. 



THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. CAN THE STATE BE 
ATHEISTICAL? 

April 24, 1844. 

In 1606, Pope Paul Y. cast an interdict upon the republic of 
Venice. Wliat liad slie done? She had claimed for the 
State the rights which Prance has conquered, and that are 
now no longer contested but in secret. In spite of the excom- 
munication, the clergy of Venice — truly national — ^remained 
faithful to the republic ; they continued to perform worship 
as if nothing had happened. The Jesuits alone deserted ; 
they passed over to the enemy. 

Prom the comer of a convent, Sarpi, a poor monk of 
genius, a physician, naturalist, and remarkably fine writer, 
defends the republic by admirable pleading against the 
temporal usurpation of papacy. One evening, returning 
home to the convent, he was waylaid and assaulted by four 
assassins, who went afterwards and took refuge with the 
apostolic nuncio. Having recovered from his wounds, the 
monk hung up on the waU of his cell, over a skuU, the 
weapon of these hravi, that he had plucked from his woimd, 
with this inscription : Dagger from Rome. His revenge was 
to write, in the seventeenth centmy, with the boldness of the 



THE ROMAN CHUECH AND THE STATE. 87 

eighteentk, the Histoiy of the Coiuicil of Trent. That 
splendid monument of vigour and reason marked tlie last 
effort of tlie democratic Churcli in the South. Sarpi did, in 
rehgion, what Campanella and Bruno did in philosophy ; he 
uttered, like them, the last cry of independence in Italy. 

Here we are entering upon a new order of ideas : we must 
descend to the bottom of the gravest question, that of the 
connection of the Chm-ch with the State. We are forcibly 
led to it by om- subject, since the fh'st thing we meet with on 
the very thi'eshold of the two last centmies, is the Council of 
■Trent, which, related in two opposite senses by the monk, 
the freethinker, Sai-pi, and by the Jesuit Pallavicini, belongs 
doubly to the genius of Southern Europe, whose destiny it 
stOl partly governs. This council, the last of all, was the 
answer of the theology of the South to the Reform of Luther 
and the Northern nations. If we consider only the interests 
connected with it, its historian was justified in caEing it the 
Iliad of modern times. Let us confine om'selves to consider 
it in its relations with the constitution of the Chm-ch. Our 
subject is stiU but too vast ; from Jesuitism we now pass to 
Ultramontanism. 

In a human point of view, what fh'st marks the grandeur 
of the Chm-ch, is that, as long as it fiomished, her govern- 
ment was the ideal towards which political govermnents had 
never ceased to gi-avitate. It is certain that, till the French 
Revolution, the ci\al world modelled itself upon the forms of 
that spiritual society; you might find the spirit of monarchical 
revolutions by following the intestine revolutions of papacy 
and the councils. 

Nothing assm-edly is more extraordinary than the spectacle 
of those councils, those assemblies composed of all sorts of 
nations, and which, perpetually changing places, sunnnoning 
God to their bar fi"om age to age, gave, every time, a new 
impulse to the world. What are, in comparison to them, the 
dehberating assemblies of our days ? Votes were counted by 
nations, and the business of the majority was truly the affair 



38 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



of the universe. "WTiether Arius, Origen or Pelasgus gained 
the day in these questions of voting, all the succession of ages 
was altered; for a profound logic connected each of these 
Constituent AssembKes of Chiistianity to the other. They 
not only continue, but develop each other; forming all 
together an organization that lives and moves onward from 
age to age. Fii'st, the Council of Nice, in the beginning of 
the fourth centuiy, lays down, as a foundation to support aU 
the rest, the idea of God; then, according to the order of 
time, come the deliberations upon the Scriptm-es, the canonical 
books, the ceremonies and the hierarchy : and this discussion 
lasts sixteen centmies. 

In this space of time, as long as the Church was developed 
she is reflected in the corresponding forms of the political 
world. See and compare ! When the bishop is named by 
the acclamation of tlie people, the king of infant society is 
elected in the same manner ; the people raise him upon the 
shield. Later, the bishops form among themselves a sort 
of feudal republic, the image and t}^e of the feudality 
of the barons. They of Paris say to the Pope, who begins 
to grow strong : " If he comes to excommunicate 2cs, ice 
will excommunicate him: Si excommunicaturm veuit^ excom- 
municatus ahihit.^^ Is not this, featui'e for featm-e, the situa- 
tion of royalty in its swaddling-clothes, stiE enveloped by 
the power of the lords ? Gregoiy VII. and his successors, 
supported by the herd of mendicant orders, repress and 
humble the bishops ; they found the spiritual monarchy. Is 
not this the signal, in all Christian Em'ope, for the temporal 
monarchy to foUow the same road? Louis-le-Gros and 
Philip Augustus are so many shadows who walk in imitation 
of the popes of the preceding centuiies. 

The fifteenth century arrives : the schism of the West 
bursts forth; papacy has many heads, that is to say, the 
schism is in the State as it is in the Church. Must we not 
say as much of royalty, when there are two kings in France, 
one French, the other English ? The councils of Belle and 



AND THE STATE. 



39 



Constance revolt : it is also the moment of the explosion of 
the Communes in France, the Cortes in Spain, and the 
Parliaments in England. The Council deposes the pope, — 
the State deposes the emperor and two kings. Up to this 
moment, what more is wanted ? Has not the temporal world 
obeyed the shghtest impulse of the spiiitual ? Obedience on 
the part of the State preceded the command, the word of the 
Chm'ch. The latter had only to move a thread, to tm*n, in 
whatever direction she pleased, the whole Christian society. 
The resemblance between the rehgious and the political con- 
stitution produced that accord in society which gives a peculiar 
beauty to the middle ages ; but how long will this agreement 
last ? Follow my idea one moment longer, I pray you ; we 
approach the Council of Trent. 

TMiat was the spirit of that gTcat assembly ? This is what 
I must examine in a few words. It was, as is well known, 
a spirit of restoration, reaction, and a religious counter- 
revolution. In face of Eeform triumphant in the North, 
the Chm-ch, who, a few years previously, had been carried 
away by the genius of innovation, concentrates herself in the 
Holy See as in a fortress. 

One century before, papacy had uttered, in the Council of 
Florence, one of those exulting cries which make the world 
leap for joy : Eejoice, and be glad, jubilate, exuUate, all you 
who bear the name of Cln'istians, omnes qui uhique nomine 
censemini Oristiano. What was then the grand news which 
Rome thus announced to the earth ? Good news, indeed^ if 
it had been confirmed : it was that the East was joining the 
West, that the priests of Asia, the patriarchs, the Greek 
bishops, and the monks of Mount Athos, were coming out of 
the separate Church, and were arriving by all sorts of roads, 
at Florence, to be reconciled, in the city of the arts, with the 
Roman unity. A new alliance of Greece and Italy, not only 
in the festivals of art, but in those of worship. Italy decked 
herself out in all her pomp, and strewed upon the roads her 
fairest flowers, to welcome this elder sister, who anived, as a 



40 



THE EOMAN CHURCH 



pilgrim, from tlie ruins and cloisters of Athens, Trebizond, 
and Constantinople. 

It was thought that the ancient division was about to dis- 
appeai' ; they believed themselves obliged to use an unwonted 
urbanity towards those schismatics, the descendants of Peri- 
cles. Italy and Grreece united ! What a miracle ! But the 
hope lasted only a moment ; the rites of Athens would not 
yield to those of Eome ; they parted, never again to meet ; 
and this hope deceived, excited in the Western Church a 
spirit of distrust, which plainly appeared in the foUowdng 
centmy. 

If you compare to the Council of Florence, that of Trent, 
you perceive that the more hope there was in the former 
of reconciliation with the East, the less there remained in the 
latter of any alliance with the North. How quickly was 
Italy undeceived ! She had promises for Greece ; — she has 
but cm-ses for Germany ! 

Consequently, instead of inviting, as in the past, aU 
the earth to judge between Luther and Eome, papacy, 
in this last affair, confides fully but in one people. The 
Council of Trent has not, like its predecessors, its roots in 
all nations; it does not assemble about it the representa- 
tives of aU Chi'istendom ; it leans in fidl secmity upon none 
but the people whom papacy had invested on every side. 
Instead of that innumerable crowd of theologians, doctors, 
and people, (omniplebe adstante is the formula of the ancient 
councils,) whom they had known how to attract in preceding 
periods, how was that illustrious assembly of Trent really 
composed? A hundi'cd and eighty- seven Italian prelates, 
thirty-two Spanish, twenty-six French, and two German ; 
such are then the mandatories of the Chi'istian universe. 
The East and the North are almost equally wanting ; and 
this is why the king of France refused it the title of council. 
Moreover, the mode of dcHberation was changed; in pre- 
ceding councils they voted by nations in a body; every people 
that had a language proper to them, counting as one per- 



AND THE STATE. 



41 



SOU. "Whereas, in the Council of Trent, tliey voted indi- 
viduaUv, one by one, wMch insured, for ever, and upon every 
point, a majority for Italy. 

Ai'e you not struck here with the extraordinary feature of 
this position of things ? The Holy See has ever continued to 
increase at the expense of the political existence of Italy; 
by the force of circumstances, it prevented her from marching 
like aU the other nations of Em-ope towards a unity which, 
alone, could save her. It suspended in that countiy the 
breath of ci^Tl life, prevented the political State from deve- 
loping itself and lasting, and absorbed aU the vital powers of 
Italy ; being stripped and laid bare by everybody, the Lom- 
bard league, Pisa, Morence, and Yenice, those centres of poli- 
tical organization, disappear, each in her tm-n ; the temporal 
world is blotted out ; it vanishes before the spnitual. 

"\Mien this great work was accomplished, and there no 
longer remained anj^nrhere a single trace of movement in the 
civil world; when, in the sixteenth centmy, Italy — effaced 
from the political map — disappeared fr'om the region of time 
to enter upon the road of eternal ruin, — at that very moment 
papacy said to her : ' You are dead, but I will make you 
reign ; you have been sacrificed to me, but I \^'iU give you a 
triimiph over the Avorld. I have absorbed aU youi- rights, all 
your hfe, aU yom- futm-e ; nothing subsists any longer in you 
but myself; you have entirely consumed yom-self for me : 
and now, in my reign, it is you who shall govern ; for I will 
make of the whole earth an Italy hke yom-self, though want- 
ing your sun and your beauty. Yom- thoughts of death, 
which arise amid your maremmas and desert cities, shall be 
imposed by me upon the world ; and there shciU be, as in 
you, an awful silence ; you shall recognise and find yourself 
evemvhere, and everybody shall emy you yom- funeral crown. 
Tlie temporal power shall, as in you, grow pale everywhere 
before the spiritual; and gTass shall overgrow the ci\al 
world, as it does the country about Rome.' That is what is 
called modern Ultramontanism. 



42 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



This was an absolute domination of tlie Italian spirit, such 
as modern times made it, and which occasioned such an out- 
bm'st of protestations in the Council, on the part of the 
French, Spaniards and Germans. Life struggled against this 
declaration of death. The French ambassadors retired from 
the Council to Venice ; this step was approved of by their 
government, and, later, by the Commons {Tiers-Etat) of 
1614. The Spanish bishops with the noble pride of hidalgos 
exclaimed at this usurpation. They were near teUing the 
Pope what the Cortes said to the King, " We lolio are worth 
as much as you; — " but the anathema interrupted them ; " Let 
them go ! " exeant ! replied the majority of the Italian pre- 
lates. Laynez, the Jesuit, became the soul of the Council, 
and the reaction against the North prevailing above every 
other thought, the organization of the Chm-ch assumed a new 
form. 

In the middle ages, Gregory YIL, Boniface VIIL, and 
Innocent III., had arrogated to themselves supreme au- 
thority ; they found that power in themselves, in their per- 
sonal characters ; and aU the fifteenth centmy shoAved, by 
the revolt of the councils, that this condition had not become 
the law of the Church. The spiiit of the Council of Trent 
was to give its fuH and entii'e sanction to the idea, — that 
certain popes of the middle ages had established, — of their 
pre-eminence over the oecumenical assembhes. Thence, what 
had been the effect of a particular genius, became the very 
constitution of the Church. To paralyse the aristocracy of 
the bishops by the democracy of the mendicant orders, and 
the mendicant orders by the pretorian institution of Jesuit- 
ism, — ^was, partly, the secret of this policy. The address 
consisted in making this change, without anywhere speaking 
of it ; the Church, which was before, rightfully, a monarchy 
tempered by assemblies convoked from aU the earth, became 
an absolute monarchy. From that moment the ecclesiastical 
world is silent ! The meeting of councils is closed ; no more 
discussions, no more solemn deliberations. Every thing is 



AND THE STATE. 



43 



regulated by letters, bulls, and ordiuances. Popedom usurps 
aU Christendom. The book of life is shut ; for thi'ee centu- 
ries, not one page has been added. 

What is important for us, is to see how this new form of 
the Chm'ch was almost immediately re-produced in the South- 
em pohtical institutions. Once more, but for the last time, 
the State regulated itself by the Chm'ch. Philip 11. was the 
first who applied, in aU its rigour, to the temporal, this new 
phasis of the spiritual world. AYe shall never be able to un- 
derstand anything of his genius, if we have not before oiu: eyes 
the ideal of absolute power which the Church has just dis- 
played to the world. Thi'oughout his long career, Philip II, 
does nothing else but apply to business the spiiit of the 
Council of Trent. He becomes the temporal pope, from 
whom every authority emanates, and to whom everything 
re-ascends. No more Cortes, no more Parliaments, no longer 
anything which might bring to mind the movement, and the 
life of speech in the middle ages. From Ms vault in the 
Escurial, \\ithout making a single step, he dii-ects in silence 
that vast empire of Spain and the Indies, just as the 
pope sways the spuitual empii-e, from the bottom of the 
Vatican. 

The CoimciL was ftdl of threats ; the State aboimds with 
stakes and scaffolds. The last words pronounced by the 
prelates at their separation were. Anathema ! And Anathema 
is re-echoed during two centmies of political Inquisition. AU 
Catholic Europe, Austria, Piedmont, the Duchy of Tuscany, 
Naples, even France, are regulated, in their constitutions, upon 
this sacred model. The pope said, the Church is myself; 
the king of France answers, the State is myself. Society is 
regulated by ordinances, and popedom by bulls. The ancient 
accord of the two powers is thus preserved to the end. Whe- 
ther it confess or deny it, the temporal power conforms once 
more to the spiritual; and the unity of society is saved, 
thanks to the same servitude. 

It is for this reason Pius IV. declared that papacy, from 



THE -ROMAN CHURCH 



tlie sixteenth ceiitmy, could be maintained only by uniting 
itself in an indissoluble manner witli the princes. 

W[mt came to derange this beautiful order ? What de- 
stroyed this learned unity ? The French llevolution, which 
overthi-ew the public law, founded — in principles — tliroughout 
Catholic countries, upon the Council of Trent ; by this, we 
may calcidate the meaning and the value of that revolution. 
For the first time, since popedom exists, the temporal world 
changes, without being actuated by a corresponding movement 
of the Chm-ch. From the Council of Trent down to 1789, 
the fonn of law in Catholic Em-ope had remained unaltered. 
The State waited, for two centmies, for the Church to make 
a step first ; but she remained petrified like Lot's wife. Then 
France, doing a religious and secular work at the same time, 
hastens forth alone, at her risk and peril, into that futm-e 
where she has no other guide but herself. She realizes 
governments of free discussions, whereas the ideal wliich 
continues to hover over Eome clings more and more to abso- 
lute monarchy. 

"VMiat is this but a proof that France is not the assembly of 
the twenty-fom- old men of the apocalypse, but a being fidl of 
life, who, in this inspired movement towards the futm'e, leaves 
far behind her her accustomed guide, the Chm'ch. The ideal 
which had obstinately refused to develop itself, was outstrip- 
ped by reality ; this is the meaning of whatever you see ano- 
malous and monstrous in the present relations between the 
Chm-ch and the State. 

All these relations are reversed ; it is now the world of the 
laity that di-ags the spiritual world after it ; and the questions 
with wliich you are occupied are, fundamentally, still more 
profound than they seem ; since, in fact, in order to recover 
harmony in the law, either the Church must bring the State 
back to her principle of absolute power, or the State caiTy the 
Church away into that movement of liberty, which is the soul 
of the modern world. 

But, when the question is thus put by the very nature of 



AND THE STATE. 



45 



things, and they wish to aToid it, they pronounce a word, a 
fomidable word, which has the magic power of paralysing the 
heart : the modern State is atheistical ; the law atheistical ; and 
France, inasmuch as she is France, is an atheist ! At these 
words, the most haughty minds are abashed ; many accept 
this condemnation in silence, and their adversaries imagine 
they have blasted for ever the spirit of modern revolutions and 
institutions. In fact, the whole question is there. 

Alas ! when I know of no atheistical institutions in the 
world but those of wandering gipsies, vtdthout either home or 
country under heaven, is it indeed true that such is entirely 
the spii-it of om's ? That, indeed, would be a hopeless policy, 
a lawless law, a day without a morrow. They beheve they 
are thus smiting the futm'e with ci^dl death. How now ! let 
us speak quietly. 

"When, in ancient France, violence existed in morals and 
the law, when privilege, social inequalities, the servitude of 
lands and men, in a word, when everything that Christ 
reproves foiTaed the very basis of ci^il hfe, you called that a 
Christian kingdom ! '\'\'hen brutal force reigned in the place 
of the soul, when the sword decided everything, when the 
Inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, tortm-e, bor- 
rowed fi'om pagan law, the caprice of one man, that is to say, 
when pagan society still continued and governed, you called 
that a veiy Christian kingdom ! And, on the contraiy, ever 
since brotherhood and equality, inscribed in the law, tend 
more and more to descend into reality, ever since the mind 
has been acknowledged to be stronger than the sword or the 
executioner, ever since slavery and bondage have ceased or 
people have been endeavoming to abohsh what remains, ever 
since individual liberty, being consecrated, has become the 
right of evei-y immortal soul, ever since those whose fathers 
massacred one another have ever shaken hands, that is to say, 
since the Christian thought, doubtless yet too weak, has gTa- 
dually penetrated into institutions, and is becoming as it were 



46 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



the substance and aliment of modern law, you caU that an 
atheistical kingdom ! 

What is it then you understand by religion ? And what 
then is yom- Christ ? Is it a word or a Hving reality ? If it 
be a word, you may, indeed, be able at pleasm-e to fix it to a 
determined period of the past, like the name of the king of the 
Jews at the top of the Cross. If it be a reality, we must 
know how to find it in what is, and not alone in what is no 
more. 

You seek Cluist in the sepulchre of the past ; but Chi-ist has 
quitted his sepulchre ; he has walked forth and changed liis 
place ; he is incarnate, he lives, and descends into the modern 
world. Ah ! you who think to hurl, \\dth one word, an ex- 
communication upon France, I know your great misfortune, 
and wiU teU it you : you seek your God where he is no longer ; 
and either you do not know where he is, or wish, no longer to 
see him. The Council of Trent had intended for its fii'st aim, 
to abohsh Protestantism and extii*pate the dissenters. By fire 
and sword, they were able to succeed in Spain and Italy. 
Some persons of very unbiassed minds think it a matter of 
regret for social unity that the case was not the same in Prance; 
they believe that one religion would have given this country 
more consistency. I am persuaded, on the contrary, that it 
was a favour of heaven, for us, that we escaped from that 
spirit of seclusion which divided the sixteenth century. It 
was not without the will of Heaven that our brethren the 
protestants of France escaped so many snares, murders, banish- 
ments and massacres. The sword was impotent against them 
because they were necessary for the work and the future of aU. 

■ If France had remained entii-ely Catholic, she woidd have 
fallen irrevocably into the form of Spain ; on the other hand, 
had she been wholly Protestant, perhaps she would have 
been satisfied with acting England over again, which is 
another extremity. But embracing, at the same time, both 
these religions, these two forms of Chiistendom, her spirit 



AND THE STATE. 



47 



has been forced to expand ; she has been obliged to rise to n 
superior understanding of law, and to enlarge her Church 
suihciently to allow all humanity at length to enter it. For, 
she was to serve as a mediatrix between the North and the 
South, Eome and Geneva, the Latin people and the Germanic 
nations; and as aU the traditions of the truly universal 
Church flowed into her bosom by Catholicism and Pro- 
testantism, she was necessarily to serve as a focus for the 
explosion of the new spirit. 

On entering into this idea, I was happy to see that one of 
the men whose intelligence I revere the most, Leibnitz, had 
had the same conviction before me. I must here recite his 
memorable words, which are a sort of prophecy ; they are 
quoted from his correspondence with Bossuet upon the project 
of union between the CathoHcs and Protestants. 

" The obstacle which the Council of Trent presents to the 
union," says that great man, " being duly weighed, it will be 
thought, perhaps, that it is by the secret direction of Pro- 
vidence that the authority of the Council of Ti'ent is not yet 
sufficiently acknowledged in France; in order that the French 
nation, which has preserved a medium between the Pro- 
testants and Ultra-Eomanists, may be more in a state to work, 
some day or other, for the deliverance of the Chm'ch, as well 
as for the reintegration of unity." 

I read, a little further : " God wished that the victory 
should not be entu'C, that the genius of the French nation 
might not be quite suppressed." 

As if he was not yet quite clear enough, he returns to his 
presentiments with fresh energy. 

" I have said, and I say so again, it seems as though God 
did not wish it should be otherwise, in order that the kingdom 
of France might preserve liberty, and remain in a state to 
contribute better to the re-establishment of ecclesiastical unity, 
by a more suitable and better authorized council." 

What power in this obstinate faith in the mission of our 
coimti-y ! The hope which that great man put in France has 



48 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



not been deceived. Whatever be the violence of those who 
dispute possession of her, she will not fall into the extremes 
of sects; she has taken her position in the very heart of 
humanity, and there she is inexpugnable. In fact, I will 
suppose, for a moment, a thing which often engages the 
attention of serious minds, that the menaces wliich anive at 
intervals from Eugland and the North, are realized ; that a 
new race, the Sclavonic nation, urged on by Eussia, is agitated 
in her turn, and would have her day ; in a w^ord, that some 
conliagTation is impending ; or lastly, simply, that peace will 
not be perpetual : do you believe that, to be prepared to meet 
this new situation, it woidd be sutticient for us to raise the 
exclusive banner of the Council of Trent and the Invincible 
Armada ? 

Do you believe that, by so doing, we should at least cb'ag 
atler us and in om alliance the nations of the South ? Eut 
those nations pretend, with reason, to represent more faith- 
fully than ourselves the spirit of that council; they would 
follow us only when we showed them a greater and more 
universal standard. On another hand, in order to disam 
the North beforehand, the sm-est way is to oppose to 
it partly its oivn spirit, exalted, so to speak, to a higher 
power. 

What composed, in antiquity, the strength of the Roman 
State, was its having called and evoked to itself all the gods 
of the ancient universe, who thus became the guarantees of 
its safety. In like manner, if ever the day of danger arrive, 
if the morning of the last battle da\^^ls, it is necessary that, 
in the Christian alliance, every nation of the South and 
North, whether of the Latin or Germanic commimion, should 
see and recognize in France their banner and thought ; there 
nnist not be in aU hmnanity a single right that has not here 
its safeguard, not one immortal thought that has not here its 
refuge, not one conquest of civilization that is not here 
guaranteed ; it must be, that in violating this country they 
violate all the others ; to be frank, as all the pagan imiverse 



AND THE STATE. 



49 



was interested in tlie safety of the Roman State, so all tlie 
Christian universe must be interested in the safety of France. 

This idea will be found fault with, falsified, and slandered ; 
no matter ; my conviction is, that it is true : if I be con- 
demned, Leibnitz wiU be so too. 

All I have just said may be resumed thus : as long as the 
State was barbarous and half pagan, it miderwent, as a matter 
of right, the absolute supremacy of the Chm'ch ; this is the 
first period of om- history, personified by the sacerdotal race 
of the Carlo^dngians. "V\Tien the State became Chiistian, 
like the Church, it perceived that it had, like her, the divine 
right of existence and dm-ation. Its dependency on the 
spiritual ceased; the struggle began; a period swayed by 
Saint Louis, and which lasts till the renaissance. "VTnen the 
State rose to an idea more universal than Eome, it sought 
reciprocally to absorb the Church ; that is the spirit which 
distinguishes the Concordat of ISTapoleon from the ecclesias- 
tical laws of Charlemagne. 

This revolution is personified, in some manner, in the con- 
secration of these two emperors, Charlemagne feels himself' 
attracted by a power that sm-mounts his own : he traverses 
his empire, and goes to Home to fall upon his knees before 
the spiritual authority. In the nineteenth century, on the 
eontraiy, papacy is moved on its tlu'one ; and drawn along 
by a superior power, it comes to salute, in the cathedral of 
Paris, that world of the laity, that unknown power, that new 
period, that future, Avhich another divine right had raised 
from the earth. 

Fundamentally, no two things resemble each other less 
than the Ultramontanism of the middle ages and the Ultra- 
montanism of the modern world. The former urged to 
action. It was like a gTand command for a march impressed 
upon humanity. The respect of nations, the Avars against 
the Infidels, and the Crusades ! What aliment ofi'ered to 
the spiiit of the world ! Sacred policy had its heroism. 

But, for two centm'ies and a half, who has heard, on any 



50 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



occasion, a formal order for one great enterprise proceed from 
the same places ? I liave approached as near as I could to 
those holy walls ; but, in an age when everybody is in ex- 
pectation, and wanting a guide, I have not seen issue from 
the gates of the Vatican, those messengers of sacred policy 
who ought (considering the age we live in) to be caiTying in 
every road, the solution and the command of God. And 
they are astonished that we do not submit blindly, that we 
seek an outlet elsewhere, when no order, no formal impulse, 
comes any longer from that quarter ! 

They call that wickedness and iH-wiU. No; it is the 
necessity of moving and being ; it is also, much rather, the 
desire of provoking them to live who treat us as enemies. 

Wliy is it, that ever since the last sessions of Trent, that 
is to say, nearly three centmies, we see no more councils ? 
Why this mortal silence, when it is notorious to aU that that 
great assembly left (wliich had not been seen before) a crowd 
of questions about the dogma unanswered? The prelates, 
on separating, expected they should soon meet again in 
another assembly ; but their adieu has been eternal ; and yet 
are difficulties wanting in the world ? Or is it that solutions 
are wanting for the difficulties ? 

The latter have but increased ever since they believed they 
had settled them ; for, this is the contradiction I meet with. 
If I consider the Chm-ch at her own point of sight, the Latin, 
Germanic, Greek and Sclavonic nations are now more sepa- 
rated, and more opinionated, than ever, each in her own 
solitude, since she herself seems to despair of being able to 
unite them. If, on the contrary, I look at temporal society, 
these same nations hold together, mingle and grow ever more 
friendly ; they are on the point of forming among themselves 
a great civil communion. If the Church means an assembly 
in the name of one and the same thought, it is visible that all 
nations tend more and more to enter into one same imiversal 
Chm'ch ; the world of the laity thus realizes the great work 
which the spiritual power seems to renounce. 



AND THE STATE. 



51 



ShaU we ever see the coimcil expected by Leibnitz, in 
wMch, aU creeds being represented, nations will vote for 
themselves? When, before our eyes, the hostile orders, 
Dominicans, Franciscans, after having excommunicated each 
other for whole centuiies, re-unite, is this a sign that the 
diiferent rehgions will at length understand one another and 
be restored to their primitive unity? What is certain ie, 
that though the Chui'ch does not convoke the council of 
alliance, the God of history convokes it himseK every day ; 
for history is a councU perpetually assembled, and truly oecu- 
menical, in which every nation is called, at her proper horn*, 
to discuss, dehberate, and vote. There nobody appears by 
ambassador; but each speaks and pronounces in her own 
name. They are no longer doctors, but nations full of life, 
and urged on by Providence, that are now deliberating. 
No assembly can ultimately prevail against this assembly of 
ages ; and it is in vain that they speak elsewhere of excom- 
munications and anathemas, if this assembly, on the contrary, 
speak only of alliance and reconciliation. 

The vital creeds of the human race have indubitably a 
fand of unity, which the warfare of the intellect and the 
passion of sects may conceal for a time, but which cannot 
fail to burst out at last. Happy the people who were the 
first to have any consciousness of it in their revolutions and 
their laws. 

They hope, but in vain, by one final stratagem, to divide 
us, by separating what they term the sons of the Crusaders 
from the sons of Yoltau-e ; none of us in this country admit 
this puerile distinction and this family pre-eminence. The 
nobility of us all is of the same date, we are aU of us the 
sons of Crusaders. Only, other days have come ; the Cru- 
sades of the middle ages are ended ; those who would try 
that road again, find only death at the end of theii* journey. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND SCIENCE. 



GALILEO. 
May 7, 1844. 

The Clmrcli, whicli at first contained all tlie elements of 
social life, becomes gradually unpeopled as we emerge from 
the middle ages. At every period of modem times, an 
institution, or some one element of life, is detached fi'om it. 
First, the State leaves it, and becomes secidar ; next, art, 
which becomes Greek or Roman; then, individual liberty, 
which is identified mtli Protestantism. At length, every 
schism is summed up in the greatest and most irreconcileable 
of all, the schism of Science and the Chm'ch, to which we 
are now led by our thoughts and the name of Galileo. 

I thus see in every centmy a multitude leaving the sanc- 
tuary under a particular banner. But these processions, 
which open the gates of their own accord, after having com- 
municated with the secular world, retm-n no more to the 
ecclesiastical enclosure. In vain they are expected back; 
they never rc-appear. The sanctuary becomes ever more 
solitary; even words change their meaning: the Church, 
^^'hich formerly comprehended all Christian humanity, signi- 
fies, at last, merely the body of the clergy. 

At the time to which we are now come, the Inquisition 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND SCIENCE. 



53 



has stifled every appearance of movement in tlie Soutli. The 
executioner has just cut out the tongue of Vanini ; Giordano 
Bruno and Dominis have been bm*nt at the stake. As Italy 
is obliged to renounce theories, ideas, and systems, what 
now remains for her? You answer: experiments, facts, 
reality, and, what is invincible for man, mathematics. Well 
then, experiments and mathematics are about to be pro- 
scribed, physics condemned, geometry excommunicated, in 
order that it may be well demonstrated that if Italy stands 
still, if she ceases to produce, it is because every issue is 
shut, and that it is her very life that they condemn in her. 

At the same time. Providence is going to make use of a 
great man to prepare the most extraordinary snare for 
papacy ; Koman infaUibihty vvall find itself compromised by 
something stiU more infallible ; all the world wiH see the 
priest run foid of the ^dsdom of God. 

The day Michael Angelo died, Galileo came into the 
world. He continues that dynasty of great men who had 
begun by Dante. He is for the science of the modems what 
Dante was for their poetry. 

The first thing that strikes me in him, is, that, pm'suiug 
his investigations as he did in eveiy part of the physical uni- 
verse, you discover -in the multitude of his experiments the 
spirit of a vast system, a gTcat body of ideas, which are never 
entirely exposed, but which are often revealed by one word, 
and make themselves felt in each of his works ; he himself 
boasted of having employed more years at philosophy than 
months at mathematics. What wiis that idea, that soul con- 
cealed in his works? The violence practised against the 
mind by the Eoman Chm'ch, the example of so many useless 
burnings, forced him to conceal the best part of himself; he 
has sho^vii us only the outward body of liis science. I wish 
somebody would take upon himself to search into the secret 
confidence that escaped here and there from that great man, 
into some hidden, splendid fragments, to find what was the 
secret Demon of this Socrates of the modern world. 



54 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



For, do not believe that chance alone guided him in his 
discoveries. His fundamental maxim, that we cannot teach 
truth to another, that we can only help him to find it within 
himself, this single maxim, the foundation of his method, 
is an entire philosophy ; it woidd suffice to separate him, by 
a gulf, from the pm-ely sensualist schools. If we pursued 
the study which I can only indicate in this place, we should 
find that Galileo belongs to the most comprehensive schools 
of Pythagorean antiquity ; there was not among the new 
thinkers, the Cesalpinis and Sarpis, any bold thought that he 
had not embraced. 

Prom those heights of philosophy, as from the summit of 
the tower of Pisa, he presided over experiments and facts. 
But being forbidden the moral world, he was reduced to 
enlarge the physical one. 

"VAHio knows even whether this necessity of compressing 
himself in one dii'ection, has not in another added to liis 
natm-al strength? They have often compared Bacon to 
Galileo ; I find only differences between them. The former 
shows very ingeniously the road we must take to arrive at 
truth; but, as soon as he has made a step to find it, he 
wanders from it. He traces wonderful theories to discover 
the nnknown ; but he cannot seize it. In Galileo, on the 
contrary, no lessons, but much reality. In him, everything 
is life, discovery, and creation. He does not say how we 
must find; he finds. The diff'erence between these two 
geniuses is that between a man making good poetics, and 
another making a fine poem. 

Galileo treats science as Kaphael treats art. He acts ; he 
enlarges the imiverse ; he creates ; he does not discuss. 

In this point of view, Galileo resembles much rather his 
friend Kepler ; they both pm-sne the same order of truths ; 
only, science appears in the German Kepler with all the 
enthusiasm of the apostle. Before resoMng a problem, he 
exclaims : I give myself up to the sacred fury : lubet indul- 
gere sacrofurori. He intersperses his formulas with prayers. 



AND SCIENCE. 



55 



canticles, and psalms. In this geometrician of Pragne, you 
perceive something of the fire of John Huss and Jerome of 
Prague. He leaps for joy in the bosom of mathematical 
truth, as if he had been struck by the burning rays of 
revelation. 

You know the words, at once so holy and noble, with 
which he opens his treatise upon the revolutions of the celes- 
tial bodies : " I choose to insult mortals by an ingenuous 
confession. The die is cast ; I write a book which will be 
read either by contemporaries or by posterity ! no matter ! 
Let it wait for its reader a hundred years, if necessary, since 
God himself has waited six thousand years for a Vvdtness of 
his works." This is the conviction of the true geometrician 
with the fervour of the believer. 

One great error is to think that enthusiasm is irreconcileable 
with mathematical truths ; the contrary is much nearer being 
the fact. I am persuaded that many a problem of calculation 
or analysis of Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Eider, and the 
solution of many an equation, suppose as much intuition and 
inspiration as the finest ode of Pindar. Those pure and in» 
con'uptible formulas which akeady were before the world was, 
that will be after it, governing throughout all time and space, 
being, as it were, an integral part of God, and those sacred 
formulas which will survive the ruin of the universe, put the 
mathematician, who is worthy of that name, in profound 
communion with the divine thought. In those immutable 
truths, he savours what is pmest in the creation : he prays 
in its language. He says to the world, like the ancient : 
" Let us be silent, we shall hear the murmming of the 
Gods!" 

The relation between science and eternal religion, thouo^h 
it may be expressed with less exaltation than in Kepler, does 
not exist the less in Galileo. Properly speaking, it is Galileo 
who opens the gates of that modem world, that modern 
society, where everything is founded upon weight and mea- 
sure. He enters upon that region of discoveiy with a 



56 



THE ROMAN CHUUCH 



serenit}^ an inward harmony, that no one had known before 
him ; even his discoveries do not seem to move liim. He 
floats down the stream in quest of tmth, •with the ingenuous- 
ness and confidence of Christopher Columbus saihng for the 
New World, which he abeady possesses in liimself. You 
would say, that in discovering things, worlds, and unknown 
laws, Galdeo does but confii-m the idea he ali-eady enter- 
tained of them. Notliing ever betrays any astonishment in 
him; he handles the universe in every dii-ection, as if he 
knew it beforehand. This confidence in his movements, is 
the most exalted characteristic of his genius. 

ObseiTe, that which necessarily made observation impossible 
or sterile in the middle ages, was their contempt of the pre- 
sent time. Man cast a fugitive look upon that universe of a 
moment, which fled Hke the billows, and where nothing fixed 
his heart. Galileo was the fii*st to do just the contrary : he 
fixed his eyes steadfastly upon every moment, as if upon an 
eternity, upon every atom, as upon a world, and upon 
every world as upon infinite space. Erom this point of 
view, which reverses all the past, he di-a-rt^s forth new 
science. 

In the cathedi-al of Pisa, in the middle of ascetic prayers, 
he fixes his eyes upon the oscillation of a lamp : this motion 
of the sacred lamp reveals to him the law of the isocln-onism 
of the pendulum. At this news, Kepler, from a remote part 
of Germany, exclaims : Courage, Galileo, go on ! — Confide, 
Galilcee, et progredere ! Galileo answers by liis works, which 
he himself caUs gigantic, the discovery of the law of falling 
bodies, the science of dynamics, hydrostatics, the composition 
of the telescope, the constitution of the Milky- Way, th« 
rotary motion of the sun, the generation of comets, the four 
satellites of Jupiter, and the application of the laws of these 
celestial bodies to the measure of longitudes. 

With the mimificence of a sovereig-n, he announces, and 
gives to the chiefs of States, to the King of Spain, and the 
Republic of Holland, whatever discoveries were Tuost capable 



AND SCIENCE, 



57 



of being instantly put in practice. He does the office of the 
priest, reveals immutable laws, and teaches the wisdom of 
God in his works. His Yenetian fiiends write, that, in this 
triumphant march from revelation to revelation, he is like a 
imnarcli of the universe ; I am satisfied with saving he is its 
pontiff. Now let us see how this priesthood was acknow- 
ledged by the Church. 

About the year 1536, a Pole, after a long sojom-n in Italy, 
retm-ned to his country: there, he composed, iii a very 
austere sphit, an astronomical work, iti which he supposetl 
that the eaith, and not the sim, moves in infinite space. He 
dedicated this work to Pope Paul III., and died before liis 
book was published: a profound silence reigned for some 
time over his memory. 

The book finds its way into Italy, where it is treated as a 
joke. Galileo himself, still young, though struck and con- 
verted, dares not confess it ; he does not yet feel himself 
strong enough against lidicule. However, he gTaduaHy grows 
bolder, in proportion as his con\iction becomes more ii-resist- 
ible. It required a sort of heroism to proclaim it : Galileo 
becomes the apostle of the new dogma ; he teaches, confirms 
and pubhshes it. Such is the bond of truth, that almost aR 
the men who looked to the fiitm-e ranged themselves, almost 
immediately, on the side of this doctrine. Sarpi, Campa- 
nella, Grotius, Gassendi, adopt it, as one may say, spon- 
taneously; but aU the men of the past reject it, and the 
most zealous in repelling it are the Jesuits. Their orator, 
their ci\Tlian, the gTcat EeUaiTnin, is the fii'st to utter the cry 
of alaim ; he convokes an assembly of the Inquisition, which, 
in its first deliberation, forbids every discussion or exposition 
of the h}i)othesis of Copernicus. He had also branded as 
suspicious, the discovery of the fom- satellites, and tliat instru- 
ment of magic, the telescope, wliich threatened to overthrow 
the heavens. 

What then had happened since the time when Pope 
Paid III. had accepted the dedication of Copernicus ? The 
D 5 



58 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



Eeformation had gained gi'ound abroad, and fear had in- 
creased in the Chm-ch. Henceforth eveiy novelty, every dis- 
covery, becomes a peril, the slightest noise in the universe, 
even the rising of a star or the passing of a meteor. Life 
itself frightens them. 

Let us be candid: Galileo gave to this system a power 
that was menacing for everything that was gi'0"vving old ; it 
was a revolution on earth as well as in heaven. 

Urged by the spirit of truth, and incapable of remaining 
silent, in spite of the Inquisition, Galileo composed a series of 
dialogues in which the new system is, on one side, defended 
with ii'resistible art, and, on the other, awkwardly attacked 
by Simplicius, one of the interlocutors. They were malicious 
enough to tell Pope Urban YIIL, that this Simplicius, a very 
narrow mind indeed, was no other than his Holiness himself. 
This artifice was not necessary to envenom everything ; for 
facts spoke loud enough. 

See, indeed, aU the gi'eat change which the exposition of 
the new system introduced, not only in things, but in the 
minds and thoughts of men. The veiy manner in which it 
was presented was a novelty. It was no longer the rugged 
language of school-divinity which was addressed only to a 
smaU number of privileged inteUigences. It was, on the 
contrary, science becoming humble and lowly in order to be 
accessible to all. In that supple, familiar and charming lan- 
guage of Galileo, the heavens themselves seemed to bow 
down and show their transparent mysteries. Imagine the 
method of Socrates applied to the science of the celestial 
revolutions, the gi'aceful digressions and the ii'ony of Plato, 
with the rigom- of the demonstrations of Ai'chimedes and 
Euclid. People felt themselves hmiied along, by this dia- 
logue, from spheres to spheres, without fatigue ; this popu- 
larity, in the mysteries of science, was a thing unheard of : — 
first cause of fear. 

Secondly, the independence of discussion, the accent of 
discourse, the consciousness that the hmnan mind infallibly 



AND SCIENCE. 



59 



acquired its native strength, called to mind, every instant, 
the tone and almost the words of Luther. 

When Galileo repelled with so much nobleness the authority 
of tradition, and stood alone in his own strength and convic- 
tion, fronting all the past, it was impossible not to think of that 
liberty which Protestantism claimed for the mind of every indi- 
vidual. There was, in both cases, the same situation. There 
was, moreover, in Galileo, the tradition and the sentiment of 
the republican of Pisa. With what disdain does he oppose to 
the arbitraiy ordinances of princes, emperors, and monarchs, 
the immutable legislation of natm-e ! In a countiy where there 
remained no longer any trace of free institutions, he intrenches 
himself in the eternal charter of the creation ; fi'om that inac- 
cessible height he treats vdth. disdain the caprices of princes. 
In face of the infallibility of Rome arises the infaUibility of the 
canonical laws of the universe : — second cause of suspicion. 

Lastly, the nature of the system and of things. Even 
though they did not calculate all the consequences, they were 
not slow in feeling them. Whsit lightened them at the 
outset was the necessity of enlarging the idea they had formed 
to themselves of the proportions of the world.* 

Those narrow, inflexible heavens of the middle ages sud- 
denly opened, and displayed a prospect of incommensm'able 
extent. All the hacknied similes of the heavens spread out 
like a tent, the firmament extended like a skin, ceased to 
express and comprehend the truth. The reahty far sm-passed 
the poetry; they had been accustomed to a confined and 
limited universe; suddenly, that horizon, by the genius of 
one man, expands, retii-es, and vanishes into infinite space. 
To keep their proportions, it would be necessary to enlarge 
the letter, but they wish to imprison themselves within it. 
The arm of God extends tlu'ough unlimited space, whdst the 
Chm'ch becomes stiU more short-sighted ! 

Petty systems and Gothic aiTangements are lost in this 
immensity; the men of the past, imprisoned in a narrow con- 

* Fosse necessario ampliare I'orbe stellato smisuratissimamente. 



THE EOMAN CHUECH 



ception of things, tbaw back from before this infinite heaven 
on all sides open. The Eoman Church, from the very first 
moment, does not feel her soul vast enough to fill the new 
universe. 

It is worthy of remark, that what attached her to the 
ancient system, was what was most profoundly pagan in it. 
In fact, what offended still more than what I have just said, 
was to alter the idea that they had of the unalterable con- 
dition of the heavens. The perfectly idolatrous belief that 
the visible heavens, the abode of the Olympians, are formed in 
an immutable, unalterable manner, formed the basis of pagan 
physics : thence it had passed into the science of the Church. 

Fancy their stupor when a man comes to announce that 
this immutability, this incorruptibility of the heavens, is a 
dream of Paganism, that everything in those regions is sub- 
ject to changes and transformations Kke those seen on our 
globe, that those heavens are not governed by partial, or, as 
it were, privileged laws; in a word, that new worlds are 
formed and produced, that they increase, decay, or decline, 
and that the revolutions of Hfe are there eternally succeeding 
each other ! 

What an abyss was not then opened to the mind ! It was 
impossible for such as BeUarmin and Urban YIII. not to be 
frightened by it. What became of aU those visions that the 
middle ages had established in the constellations as in a chme 
of eternal felicity? They were no longer to stop at those 
worlds as fleeting as our own; they must go fm-ther, rise 
much higher. But the soul of the Church was tu'ed of 
ascending, and she refused to foUow science beyond the 
visible horizon. 

Moreover, (for surely I am here speaking to men,) if the 
human eye can foUow the generation and birth of worlds, 
what becomes of the ancient idea of the creation being finished 
in six days ? The world that they believed closed for ever, 
like a theatrical piece, opens again and increases. In other 
terms, the creation is going on at every moment of time. 



AND SCIENCE. 



61 



The mii-acle is permanent; and this idea, which sprung 
naturally and necessarily fi-om the former, was alone quite 
enough to overwhehn men, whose doctrine was, that, reckon- 
ing from a certain day or hour, eyerything was consummated 
in the physical as in the moral world. These presentiments, 
more or less obscm-e, receiyed a dazzling light fi'om another 
consequence formally expressed — I mean the new position of 
the earth in the system of the world : here the opinion of the 
middle ages was directly contradicted. 

All the Cathohcism of the middle ages had represented the 
earth as a condemned world, formed for chastisement and 
evil. It was a yaUey watered by the tears of worlds : an 
impitre sink of the universe. And lo ! Galileo, by an over- 
throw of then* accustomed theology, releases natm-e fi-om this 
condemnation. He restores to the earth her former dignity ; 
he estabhshes equahty between heaven and earth ; he shows 
how the latter, being subject to the same laws, floats in the 
same splendour; he brings back serenity and hfe in the 
place of mystic theoiT ; and, to make use of his own words, 
he replaces the earth in the heavens, from Which she had 
\yeeii banished. 

It was then truly and necessarily a new form which 
Galileo imposed upon the dogma. See the question that 
begins to arise from that moment. On one side, is the book 
of the ecclesiastical canons and the decrees of the Holy See ; 
on the other, the voliune of the universe and the eternal laws 
of geometry. These two books are diametrically opposite, 
and seem to give each other the he ! Which wiU jdeld to the 
authority of the other ? If they be both made by the same 
hand, which must give way, favom-, and comply with the 
other ? Is it the revelation TVTitten in the Old and New Testa- 
ment, as interpreted by the councils ? Or the permanent reve- 
lation, which is every day made manifest in the Hving works of 
natm-e? WiU the whole universe, mth its inexorable geometry, 
draw back before one word, perhaps badly written and badly 
interpreted, but adopted by the Holy See ? Such is the pro- 



♦ 



62 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



blem wliicli, for the fii*st time, is plainly proposed in tlie world: 
it is the divorce between the Church and Science. 

Till then, the Chm-ch had met with only partial oppo- 
sitions, sects, and opinions, derived from an order of ideas 
like her own. Behold her henceforth bravely placing herself 
in contradiction with the brazen law of the creation. The 
Chm-ch whose title is Universal is about to cast an interdict 
upon the thought that dkects the universe ! 

If the argument taken from the word oi Joshua resumed in 
a great measure all the question, I have" said enough to show 
that a multitude of considerations were connected with that. 
The most cunning, the Jesuits, were those who saw the 
furthest in this affair. Those sworn enemies of every serious 
invention, were to have the honom- of giving Galileo the first 
blow. He himself says in a letter to one of his friends, in 
speaking of them : " I have learned from good authority that 
the Jesuits have persuaded an extremely influential personage 
that my book is more abominable and pernicious for the 
Church than the writings of Luther and Calvin." * 

Thus, they excited the trial. But hardly had the world 
pronounced its opinion, when they change their minds ; and 
at length attribute to themselves the discoveries they had at 
first proscribed. t 

Moreover there is no business in which papacy has more 
often appeared in person. J Urban VIII., with a singular 

* In another letter he adds : " It is not for this opinion that I have 
been and am still persecuted — it is on account of my misunderstanding 
with the Jesuits." July 25th, 1634. Letter published by M. Libri. 
See Journal des Savants, 1841. 

f E non vi e allra differenza, se non che vogliori parere dessere essi gli 
Uwentori. See Micanzio's letter to Galileo : " You see, Signor, that the 
Jesuits are trying to enter into all your observations ; there is no other 
difference, but that they want to appear to be the authors of them." 

J The testimony of the Ambassador of Tuscany leaves no doubt 
upon this subject: — "As to the pope, he cannot be worse disposed 
against our poor Signor Galileo." Dispatch, Sept 5th, 1632. — "His 
Holiness entered upon this subject in great anger." (Ibid.) — " He 



AND SCIENCE. 



63 



fury, mixes Imnself up with every incident ; lie declares, in 
every variety of tone, that the doctrine of the movement of 
the earth is perverse in the Mgliest degree!^ 

In short, Galileo is given up, in the convent of Minerva, to 
the holy, universal, Eoman Inquisition. Behold him, a man 
loaded with glory, that good old man of seventy,! quedo huon 
veccJiio, kneehng before you, barefoot, in his shirt. You who 
are to-day the friends of entire liberty, teE us what you did, at 
that moment, with that man who then represented every kind 
of hberty. Por there is a moment when history leaves him 
and remains entirely in yom' hands. Did you put him to the 
tortm-e ? Ton alone know. You declare you submitted him 
to the rigorous examination ; but, in that infernal code of the 
Inquisition, which I have just studied, the rigorous examination 
is everj^here sjmonjTnous with torture.^ 

answered me violently." (Ibid.) — " I said to his Holiness, he certainly 
would not prohibit a book, already approved of, without at least hearing 
Signor Galileo. He answered, that that was the least harm that might 
happen to hiin, and that he had better take care not to be called before 
the Inquisition : E che si guardasse di non esser chiamato al Sant- 
Uffizio." (Ibid.) — " Growing very warm, his Holiness replied to me that 
we ought not to impose a necessity upon God." Dispatch, March 13th, 
1633. 

This latter objection of the Holy See has been exhumed in our days 
against one of our patriarchs of contemporaneous science, M. Geoflfroy 
Saint-Hilaire.i 

* These words were said by the pope to the Ambassador Niccolini, 
who forwarded them to his government : "Che ladottrina era perversa in 
extremo grado." And in another place : "This work, in fact, is pernicious." 
Sept. 18th 1632. " That this opinion is erroneous and contrary to the 
Hoiy Scriptures proceeding from the mouth of God (ex ore Dei)." Dispatch. 
June 18th, 1633. 

f "I, Galileo, aged seventy, kneeling before you most eminent 
cardinals (inginocchio avanti di voi)." Text of the judgmetit. 

X These are the terras of the judgment signed by seven cardinals: 
'* Considering that thou hast seemed to us not to have told entirely the 

^ See Appendix II. for a funeral oration over the grave of M. Geoffroy 
Saint- Hilaire. 



64 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



Did lie groan forth the words " and yet it moves, amid his 
agonizing suiFerings from the rope, the clievalet^ or the iron- 
rack ? You alone can tell.* 

truth about thy intention, we have judged it necessary to proceed 
against thee with the Rigorous Examination^ in which (without any 
prejudice to the things confessed by thee and deduced against thee, 
touching the said intention) thou hast answered like a Catholic (E 
parendo a noi, che non avevi detta intieramente la verita circa la tua 
intenzione, giudicassimo esser necessario venir contro di te al Rigoroso 
Esame)." 

As to the meaning of the Rigorous Examination, it is clearly defined 
in the Sacred Arsenal, or Code of the Roman Inquisition, the sixth 
part, under the title. On the manner of interrogating the guilty during 
torture. Here are the first words of this chapter ; the work containing 
them having become so scarce as hardly to be found, I quote them at 
length, as well as the divers formulas : — 

" The accused person having denied the crimes imputed to him, and 
these crimes not being fully proved, if, during the term appointed for 
his defence, he have deduced nothing for his discharge, or if, his defence 
being finished, he have not wiped away the probable evidence which 
result against him from the trial, it is necessary, in order to get the 
truth out of him, to proceed against him with the Rigorous Examination 
(these are the very words employed in the judgment of Galileo : E 
necessario per averne la verita, venir contro di lui al Rigoroso Esarne) ; 
torture having been specially invented to supply the defect of testi- 
mony, when there was not sufiicient to give entire proof against the 
accused person ; and this is in no respect repugnant to ecclesiastical 
gentleness and benignity. On the contrary, when the probabilities are 
legitimate, sufficient, clear, and (as they say) conclusive in their kind, 
in suo gene7-e, the Inquisitor may, and ought to do so, without any 
blame, so that the guilty, by confessing their offences, may be convert- 
ed to God, and, by the means of chastisement, save their souls." . . 
— Sacred Arsenal, or practice of the office of the Holy Inquisition, p. 263, 
printed at Rome in 1730, and dedicated to the glorious Inquisitor 
Saint Peter, the martyr. 

Galileo could only be tortured for his intention. Now the regulation 



* Niccolini, who saw him, as he came from the hands of the Inqui- 
sition, says of him at this period : *' God grant that we be yet in time ; 
for he seems to me much fallen, shattered, and afflicted. Mi par molta 
caduto, travagliato ed afflitto." 



AND SCIENCE. 



65 



Moreover, the greatest moral tonneut tliat you inflicted 
upon him was moral torture : forbidding him to teach or 

of torture, in this case, is found to be in pages 267, 268, 270, under the 
title : Modo di esaminare in tortura sopra Vintenzione solamenta. If the 
judges should have any doubts about the intention, this is the formula 

In this case, the Signors Inquisitors having seen the obstinacy of 
the accused, decree that he be put to the torture, as to intention and 
belief, &c. &c. 

" And they order that the accused be led to the place of torment, 
that he be stripped naked, tied, and applied to the rope. 

" Thus conducted, whilst he is stripped, bound, and fastened to the 
rope, he is kindly advised, and paternally exhorted (benigne monitus, 
puterne adliortatus), by the Signor Inquisitors to tell the truth, and not 
to vrait till he be pulled up by the rope, as he will indeed be pulled up 
if he persists: answers, &c. &c. 

''Then the Inquisitors sitting, and seeing that the said accused, strip - 
ped, bound, and fastened to the rope, refuses to tell the truth, order 
him to be suspended. {Eundemjam spoliatum, ligatum et funi applica- 
turn, mandaverunt in altum elevari.) 

" The same being thus hung up, begins to cry out, saying ; Ah ! ah ! 
alas ! Holy Mary .' &c. Or else he keeps silence {coepit clamando di- 
cere. — Oime ! oime ! O Santa Maria 1 ovvero tacuit). 

"All this without any prejudice to what he has confessed, the accused 
being tortured and interrogated only about his intention and belief 
(Sed tantum ipsum torqueri facere intendunt super intentione et cre- 
dulitate ipsius constituti)," &c., p. 270. 

I give here three other passages upon the identity of the Rigorous 
Examination and torture. The reader himself will judge according to 
the terms of the process. 

1st. Page 282 : " Manner of repeating or continuing torments. — It is 
convenient sometimes, on account of the atrocity of the crime, or the 
gravity of the evidence, or other important considerations, to repeat or 
eontinue the torture ; and to that end, the judges ought in this case, 
at the end of i\\e first rigorous examination, cause this clause to be added 
by the notary, animo tamen, &c., which shows a wish in the judges to 
continue the said torture ; moreover, they are to give notice that the 
habit of the holy Inquisition is to repeat it on the day immediately fol- 
lowing the first, and, generally, not to exceed the half hour either in 
the one or the other." The formula of the second torturing is as 
follows : 

"Die, — mensis, — anni, &c. 



66 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



publish anything ; a general prohibition against all he had 
done, all he would do,* de editis omnibus et edendis; an 

" Eductus de carceribus et personaliter constitutus in loco tormento- 
rura, &c. 

" And they shall proceed against the accused as in the first torture." 

2nd. Page 285 : Here is another case, where the delinquent retracts 
his confessions : 

" Then the judges order him to be hung up by the rope. 

" Thus suspended, he is silent, &c., — or else he cries out saying, &c. 
(ovvero, damans, — dixit, &c.). 

" That done, they question him as follows : Whether all he confessed 
in his first rigoi-ous examination (in alio sua rigoroso exanmie) be true in 
all its circumstances. 

" It is in the same manner that they ought to proceed against the ac- 
cused, in the case when, after having confessed in the second torture, 
and afterwards turning round against his confession, it will be conve- 
nient to proceed to a third torture, which will take place according to 
the advice and opinion of the expert." 

3rd. Page 282 : Manner of giving the rope to the accused who refuses 
to answer or will not answer with precision (precisamente) : 

" It often happens that the accused will not answer with precision, 
but does so in evasive terms : * I do not know, — I do not remember, — 
that may be, — I do not think so, — or, I ought not to be guilty of this 
crime.' But he must answer in clear, precise words : * I have said, — 
I have not said ; — I have done, — I have not done.' In this case, it is 
necessary to proceed against him with the rigorous examination, (always 
the formula of the judgment against Galileo : fa di bisogno venir contra 
di lui a rigoroso esame,) to draw from him a precise, absolute, satisfac- 
tory and sufficient answer. But, first, it is proper to make him due 
admonitions, and, after that, to menace him with the rope. And the 
notary will enregister the said admonitions and menaces. The formula 
is as follows : Benigne monitus, &c. * After having suspended him, 
they shall interrogate him in his torture upon the said fact only, keep- 
ing him suspended a longer or shorter time, ad arbitrio, according to 
the quality of the cause, the gravity of the evidence, the condition of 
the person tortured, and other such things, which the judge should 
consider, so that justice may have its efiect, without any person being 
unduly hurt.' Page 287. 

" If, during torture, the accused persist in the negative, they shall 
terminate the examination as follows : 



* " What ! said I to the father Inquisitor, if he wished to print the 
Credo or the Pater V — Micanzio's Letter, Feb. lOth, 1635. 



AND SCIENCE. 



67 



absolute silence commanded for tlie rest of his life. Banished 
for ever, like a paria, far away from cities, in liis gaol of 
Arcetri,* you forbade him the commerce of men. When, 
his eyes having been worn out by looking at the sun, he 
becomes blind, as Beethoven became deaf, when this world, 
which he had enlarged, is reduced for him to the narrow 
measm-e of his body, and when, in this forlorn state, he 
loses his dear daughter, the religious Maria Celeste, who 
read to him the penitential psalms which you had imposed 
upon him as a chastisement for his genius, so many afflic- 
tions do not disarm you. You send the Inquisitor of Plo- 
rence to inquire whether Galileo is low-spirited, whether he 
is sad ! You fear that this immortal spirit may rejoice in 
the interior contemplation of the spheres. 

Even his obseiwations, his astronomical calculations, are 
carried away and dispersed, as suspected of heresy. The 
most faithful of his friends hides Ms manuscripts imder 
ground ; — they will never be found again. On this occasion 
the Venetian Micanzio pronounces these noble words : " No, 
all tJie poioers of Jiell could not destroy such things ! " Well 
then, you have been more powerful than heU, — you have 
destroyed them ! 

In a fit of devotion, his heii* biu-ned whatever remained of 
his latter works : and you inquii-e whether Galileo is sad ! Be 

"* The Inquisitors not being able to get any thing more from him, 
order, that the accused be gently taken down from the cord to which 
he was suspended, that he be unbound, that they put the joints of the 
arms back to their sockets, that he be dressed again, and taken back to 
his place, after he has been kept suspended in torture during a half- 
hour by a sand hour-glass, and the notary shall sign {Si terminera 
V esame cost : Et ciim nihil aliud ah eo posset haberi, DD. mandaverunt 
ipsum constitutum de fune leviter deponi, disligari, brachia reaptari, re- 
vestiri ; et ad locum suum reponi, cum stetisset in torturd elevatus per di- 
midium unius horce ad horologium pulveris,) &c.' 

" But if the accused peradventure confess the crime during torture, 
they shall immediately interrogate him, in continuing the same torture, 
as to intention and belief, &c., &c., and the examination shall end as 
above, by the signature of the notary, &c., &c." Page 266. 

* " Dalla mia carcere d'Arcetri." — Galileo. 



68 



THE EOMAN CHURCH 



satisfied ! You have reduced tlie serenest, strongest, calmest 
inind that ever was, to a state of despair. A sadness, an endless 
melancholy overwliehns me, is liis answer to you : una tristizia, 
e inelanconia immensa. Yet after the lapse of two centuries, 
M. De Maistre, the chief of the Neo-Catholic reaction, 
thinks to get rid of all this part, when, with a hangman's 
laugh, he jokes about this prolonged agony, which he calls 
the Story of Galileo \ Ah! Sii's, a truce at least to your 
irony ! New defenders of the Church, insult not the 
Mart}Ts ! 

They may, by all means, answer that these cruelties belong 
to the age that committed them; they may discuss, and 
palliate them; be it so. The torture was one of the kindest; 
I am very Avilling to have it so ; accordingly, I do not stop 
at tliis. The difficulty goes much farther. 

What new order of men are these, Galileo, Kepler, and 
Newton, to whom it is given to read in the eternal council of 
the God of worlds ? Let us here give them their real name : 
they are the prophets of the modern world. We must not 
fancy that the Spiiit of God spoke only to the prophets 
of the ancient law, and that since Jeremiah and Ezekiel, 
he has never spoken to anybody. Those men of the old 
covenant saw beforehand the law wliich moves the revolu- 
tions of human societies. But, by this standard, axe not 
Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, also seers? They read in 
immensity the laws which move the societies of worlds ; and 
where did they perceive those laws, that sacred geometry, 
contemporaneous with God, and co-eternal with God, if it be 
not in God himself ! The least of them aU, Linnaeus, after 
having recognised the laws of life in the infinitely little, ex- 
claimed : "I have just seen the eternal, omnipotent, om- 
niscient God pass behind, and I remained stupefied !" I)eum 
sempiternum, onmiscmm, omnipotentemy d, te^'go transeuntem, 
mdi, et obstupui ! 

Now, it is necessary that the Church should know exactly 
with what she is reproached by the world in this affair of 



Ayj) SCIENCE. 



69 



Galileo ; it is, with haying seen, like Linnseus, the hand of 
God pass before her, and not haying recognised it ; with 
haying struck His enyoy ; with haying lacked the presenti- 
ment and inspiration of immutable things ; with not having 
been able to relish the perfmne of the celestial porch, and the 
word that supports the uniyerse ; with haying flocked to a 
sensual banner when the Spuit was speaking to her ; lyith 
ha\dng remained in a pagan genius when the Chiistian intel- 
ligence was oyercoming the illusion and habit of the body ; 
with haying belieyed the body more than the soul ; and, 
lastly, with haying denied in science the spuit and inspiration 
of Christianity. 

They find an excuse in infaHibility being claimed only for 
theology. That is tme ; but, in yoiu* own opinion, what is 
theology-, but the science of God ? It is sufficient to say, 
that those who claim the absolute right of representing this 
idea of God on earth, are obliged to possess aU that huma- 
nity can know and possess of this idea. In other tenns, you 
are obliged to haye a presentiment of eyerji^hing that, under 
one form or other, is indubitably immutable, eternal, and 
co-existent with the Creator himself. If you are infallible 
masters in the science of God, you are obHged to know aU 
that is known of God ;* that is e^ddent. The idea of cir- 
cumscribing and stripping theolog}*, and separating it from 
science, is quite modem ; for sm'ely there is but one science, 
eyen as there is but one rehgion, and you cannot abandon 
one without abandoning the other. 

Will you say (for, indeed, we are near arriying at this 
conclusion), that a whole portion of the attributes of God 
does not concern you? But then what becomes of your 
title to represent Him ? Will you say that the laws, that is 
to say, the word that made and supports the creation, that 
that sacred geometry which was bora in the temples, that 

• Nothing can be more logical than the brief by which Alexander 
VII. submits to the Holy See, not only faith, but science. 



70 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



the immutable word which does not cease to breathe upon the 
abyss, — vnH you say all that does not concern you ? 'VMiy, 
do you not see you are giving up to the scholar the attributes 
of the priest ? Instead of swaying everytliing, and contain- 
ing aU, can it be that the doctrine of God is no longer any- 
thing in yoiu' hands but a speciality/? As I demonstrated 
lately that the temporal state is, in these days, more universal 
than the spiritual, you yom-selves demonstrate that science is 
now more universal than the Chm-ch. 

People have felt, that truth could not be divided into two 
contradictory parts ; everybody acknowledges it is necessary 
to put an end to the schism between the Chm'ch and science. 
How is the capitulation to be made ? To effect it, a catholic 
science is requii-ed, and two means present themselves. 

The fii'st consists in bringing back, by fan* means or by 
force, aU facts and observations to the form of the Eoman 
Chiu'ch ; whereby, it is clear that words have no meaning, or 
that this science is necessarily false. Science, formerly com- 
prehended in the Chm-ch, and since become gi'eater, more 
comprehensible, can no longer be contained by the Church, 
if she do not enlarge herself. I have yet to learn what a 
Koman Greometry, Astronomy, or system of Mathematics, 
could be. To deserve this exclusive name, the latter must be 
separated in its principle from Protestant, Cahdnistic and 
Lutheran Geometry ; that is to say, it must lose what con- 
stitutes it as a science. Instead of ruling aU the eai-th, you 
behold it debased to the spiiit of sect. 

We also assert, without any difficulty, the unity of religion 
and science, but on condition that each be really as vast as 
the other, or rather that the most universal gain over the 
other to its truth and universality. To mutilate and para- 
lyse either of them, to make the alliance more commodious, 
is evidently flying from the question ; it is not resolving it. 

This reign of unity, stiLL pursued by the Chm'ch, is nearly 
realized, if not aheady attained, by science, which advances 
without ever stopping. You revile it mth pompous disdain ; 



AND SCIENCE. 



71 



in tlie mean time, it is accomplisliing what you remain satis- 
fied with promising. What is it doing ? It is the same for 
all nations ; it speaks, and imposes itself in eveiy language, 
it joins distant climates, and suppresses space. Ever agree- 
ing with the volume opened from the East to the West, it 
knows neither sects nor heresies. It acts, it imitates the 
Creator ; we may even say it finishes natm-e herself. It pro- 
gresses, whilst you are discussing; and the modern world, 
that you wiU not follow, gradually settles down upon its 
laws, as upon eternal reason, that truly cathohc reason, 
manifested by those very men whom you have condemned. 

In om' days, they adopt a certain number of words, by 
which they think they settle every difiiculty. I have aheady 
shoAvn how, in order to brand the modem State with infamy, 
they are contented to say, the State is atheistical. In order 
to stigmatize the scientific spirit, and blast the research of 
truth in its principle, they have another word ; they caU tliis 
doubt, — scepticism ; and having uttered this word, they re- 
main convinced that human reason has received its death- 
blow. Let us see whether it be so. 

When a man fuU of genius, Descartes for instance, rich in 
all sorts of experiments and doctrines, consents to strip him- 
self for a moment of this glory and these riches of the intel- 
lect, he becomes voluntarily poor in spirit ; from being great, 
he makes himself little; he goes back and makes himself 
ignorant of what he thought he knew ; he questions himself, 
he calls and listens to the inward God. What is that but an 
act of humility in the very middle of science ? Why do you 
disown it ? 

You pity, it is true, the eternal restlessness of the thinking 
mind, and boast that for yom'selves there is no longer any 
movement. But, pray, what is this everlasting fever of the 
thinker, the scholar, but a thirsting after truth? And can 
this thirst be more fuUy allayed in the scholar than in the 
really religious man, who, also, is never cloyed with his 
knowledge of God? 



72 



THE EOMAN CHURCH 



They ^vill not see tliat this avidity, this curiosity which 
they so deplore in the mind of the philosopher, the scholar, 
is precisely what is most sacred in him. It is the point at 
wliich true science approaches the nearest to be confounded 
mth true religion: it is an impossibility in one as in the 
c^her, to be ever cloyed Avith tmth or holiness. 

I mistrust the satisfaction which makes a display of the 
possession of Infinity; that is called fatuity in philosophic 
terms. 

On the highest step of the ladder, the priest and the 
scholar are confounded in one; Saint Augustin, Kepler, 
Galileo and Saint Thomas would certainly have agreed, at 
least by the desire of entering perpetually fm-ther into com- 
munion with the immutable. On the contrary, wiH you see 
the opposite extremity of this scale of life ? The academician, 
convinced that his work is finished, and everything said, and 
the priest, convinced that he has quietly consummated the 
knowledge of his God, and that it only remains to enjoy it, 
are, absolutely speaking, on the same level. 

But, in this search for truth, you run the risk of losing 
yoiu' Avay ! Undoubtedly. In every grand, generous, reli- 
gious action, I run some danger. There is, in this, a heroism 
of the intellect, as well as a heroism of the heart ; and it is 
this virtue of science that you pretend to suppress ! The 
man who sails from a known to an unknown shore, is, for a 
moment, in danger. Who denies it? This danger consti- 
tutes his grandem'. He could stop on the shore of the past ; 
he might settle down quietly in the midst of what he pos- 
sesses. Instead of that, he mshes forth headlong, because 
he feels a divine power attracting him towards the truth. 
Par from fainting, he leans back upon an immutable rock ; 
there he derives fresh strength; for God hides from the 
pusillanimous, but reveals himself to the brave. 

Yes, we want a religious. Catholic science, but very dif- 
ferent, it seems, from that which you demand. For, instead 
of stopping, as you ad\dse us, we want a science perpetually 



AND SCIENCE. 



73 



aspiiing, without reposing, towards new conquests, since this 
flight, this aspiring towards truth, is nothing else but the 
praying of the intellect. It has been said that every man 
who works, prays ; much more then, every man who dis- 
covers and creates. 

Science is Christian, not v\^hen it condemns itself to the 
letter of things, but when, in the infinitely little, it discovers 
as many mysteries and as much depth and power as in the 
infinitely great. Science is pious, when it finds everywhere 
a permanent miracle, and it is thus enveloped on all sides by 
revelation. It is universal, when it brings aE. worlds, aU 
truths, to one same law, one same unity, and when, being 
placed in the centre, at the generating point, it governs the 
circumference. Science is cathohc, not when it begins by 
conforming itself to the Vatican, but when it is conformable 
to that living and immutable orthodoxy which is proclaimed 
in the Council of all creatures, in the Chm'ch of worlds, by 
that sacred geometry,* those sublime mathematics which 
bend before no authority, because they are written in the 
thought of the Creator himself. 

Let us finish by one final reflection. It will be severe, but 
it is not I who make it so. 

The Chm^ch disavowed in Galileo the instruction of the 
spirit, and fell into the snare of the senses. From that 
moment, for two hundi'ed years, she often persecuted the 
Chiistian movement of the mind, by the Inquisition and 
violence. It was necessary that an awful chastisement shoidd 
suddenly come fi-om above, to warn her that she had mistaken 
her road. Providence sent her that sacred chastisement in 
hmling upon her the French Eevolution. Heaven could not 
speak louder. Was it heard and understood? How is it 
that the Church, which commands us, with good right, to 
allow ourselves to be instructed by every blow of fortune, 

* Geometria ante rerum ortum menti divinse coseterna, Deus ipse 
(quid enim in Deo, quod non sit ipse Deus). See Kepler, Uarmonices 
mundi, lib. iv,, p. 119. 

E 



74 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND SCIENCE. 



repudiates, for her part, this divine lesson, when she is the 
party struck? Will she deny the chastisement? That is 
impossible. WiU she pretend that what is true for others is 
not true for her ? She cannot do so either. Has the warning 
not been severe enough ? Must God repeat the lesson ? She 
thinks so still less. 

Why then does she blindly enter the same path again, as 
if nothing had happened, and the rod of the avenging angel 
had not been felt ? For this reason : for a punishment to be 
profitable, we must accept it as just. Now, they do not 
accept it. They boast of being martyrs when they have 
been chastised ; and what Providence wished them to receive 
as a lesson of humility, they have fasliioned into a lesson of 
pride. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND HISTORY. 



VICO. 

May 15, 1844. 

After my last words, our adversaries uttered against me a 
cry of anger ; I do not reproach tliem with it. I try to enter 
into theu' spirit and understand their violence. They have 
fixed themselves to the dead letter of things, ^ and whoevei- 
molests them in their possession drives them to despair-. 

Something similar happened in another order of ideas 
about twenty years ago. A whole school identihed poetry 
with versification, and as soon as ever it was shown what a 
fund of poeti-y escaped clear of that school, there was great 
offence. In like manner, the result of our discom-ses must 
be to show, to the offence of the dead letter, first, that a 
whole religious hfe is developed in modern times, separate 
from the clergy ; secondly, that the living God is henceforth 
rather with the world of the laity than with the ecclesiastical 
world. They wiU accuse this instruction of impiety ; the 
answer to that is too easy. I myself will tell my adversaries 
where I am without defence, and of what I ought to be really 
suspected ; it is of aspiring, at least in thought, to an in- 
struction more truly rehgious than the ecclesiastical. This 
E 2 



76 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



is the crime they must impute to me, for there I am 
defenceless. 

Galileo has just revealed the fundamental laws of the 
physical world ; it is natm-al that, in the same country, a 
man should seek to bring to equally immutable laws the 
revolutions of the moral universe which is called history. 
Vico is, in this sense, the legitimate successor of Galdeo. 

After Kepler and the mathematician of Pisa had found the 
foimulas of the movements of the physical world, the pro- 
blem wdiich natm-ally presented itself, was to seek those of 
the civil world. If an eternal order governs the orbits of the 
stars, it must necessarily be met with in the successions of 
nations and states. The same God who launches the stars in 
their orbits, casts societies into the revolutions of times ; 
and that Providence which lives in natm-e lives also in his- 
tory. There had been a glimpse of this idea ever since the 
origin of Christian society ; but the Neapolitan Yico was the 
lirst who sought to bring this sentiment to the rigour of 
science. The philosopher of Naples wishes to construct like 
a geometrical formula that great city of God which Saint 
Augustin had beheld with an eye of faith. 

To be just, we must say that the new science of Vico is 
intimately connected with the spiiit of restoration which for 
two centmies had shone forth in all the South, and particu- 
larly in Italy. A love for traditions, a powerfid sentiment of 
authority, the worship of symbols, a knowledge of legends, 
the consecration of the past,, are things in wliich he agrees 
with the reaction of the Iloman Chm'ch. But, in making an 
alliance with CathoKcism, he does not perceive that he is 
transforming it. 

Vico, who was accused in the North, of fm-nishing arms 
to papacy, was disowned by aU those who surrounded him. 
How coidd it possibly be otherwise? Whilst the general 
tendency of the South was to adhere more and more to the 
letter, Vico aspu'ed vaguely to an immense Catholicism which 
would have given a bond to aU forms of worship, and to 



AND HISTOEY. 



77 



every period : he offered papacy tlie empire of the past 
renewed by his genius. The pope did not understand better 
than the Italian clergy anything in this vast Church where 
aJl times and places were equally absorbed. Scarcely did the 
ecclesiastical power deign to listen to this man, who, in a sin- 
gtdar language, offered the assistance of an idea with the indi- 
rect advice to renew and enlarge their minds to the measure 
of ancient and modern humanity. The religious revolution 
had been reduced to the proportions of the conceptions of 
Jesuitism. How can we be sm-prised that nobody among 
the Eoman clergy perceived that a grand thought had just 
burst forth, which alone could reconcile the world with the 
Chm-ch ? 

There was a moment when two issues were offered to the 
Holy See ; on one side, the powerful, skilful, political Loyola, 
who proposed to the Chm'ch to circumscribe and limit herself, 
even though she ultimately v^ere reduced to the proportions 
of one sect ; on the other hand, was a man miserable, un- 
supported, and without guile, who had nothing but a half- 
sketched idea, but an idea mistress of the future, and which 
consisted in saying to Catholicism : Expand ! enlarge yonr 
walls and yom- symbols; di-aw within them all the ages of the 
past and the future ; give unity, not apparent but real, to all 
those nations governed by one and the same Providence. I 
bring you the science of humanity ; to deserve yom- name, 
you must expand till you embrace mankind ; be the pope, not 
only of the Latin, but of the Universal Chm^ch. 

You know which of those two voices, that addressed the 
"Roman Church, prevailed. The height of good fortune for 
^ ico was, that they did not understand him ; for had they 
done so, no doubt but he would have frightened them, and 
expiated his offence. 

I trace the originality of Vico to one single thought, the 
creator of all the others : which is, to have had the notion 
that civiKzations proceed from the idea of God, like a river 
from its source. The day when, after reading Grotius, and 



78 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



seeking to resolve the problem of tlie origin of societies, he 
discovered that community among men arose fi'om the 
thought of God, that day he found his science. Whilst the 
civilians, Grotius, PufFendorf, and, later, even Rousseau, in 
their search after the origin of society, make everything de- 
pend at fnst on the invention of the mechanic arts, Vico leaps, 
with one bound, to the conception of God ; and this thought 
being known, society is constituted. From that towering 
summit, wliich he occupies alone for a whole centmy, he 
distinctly sees horizons which escape the sight of all other 
men. Every look he casts upon human things, thus seen 
through positive belief, is hke a revelation to him ; the 
forms, the explanations of the past, appear to him in so 
new a shape, that whatever he perceives, he calls his own 
discovery. 

The only thing I reproach him with, is to have quitted 
that lofty position too soon, in order to descend to arbitrary 
explanations. It is certain that if you would have the whole 
secret of a people, you must enter into the intimacy of their 
religion. 

The God of a people is the very substance on which they 
live, and by which their generations are linked together in 
one same unity ; the arts, the laws, the philosophy of a race 
of men, are nothing else but that divine thought, circulating 
from vein to vein, and from generation to generation. 
What are all political and social institutions, but always a 
religion, which in realizing itself, becomes incarnate in the 
world ? 

The soul of Hebrew law, is Jehovah ; of Mahometan law, 
AHah ; of Em'opean law, Chiist : that is to say, always and 
everywhere, the word, the religious idea, whence a society 
sprung, and wliich develops itself, like a private discom'se, 
in the spirit and history of a nation, a State, or a race 
of men. 

If religion be the culminating point of a nation in parti- 
cular, Christianity is the most exalted idea of the human 



AND HISTORY. 



79 



race ; whence it would seem, that a man who would embrace 
the law of humanity, ought necessarily to take his level by 
the height of the Gospel. Why then did not Vico do so ? 
Tliis legislator of the ideal city effaces the Christian city from 
his memory. In order to embrace the laws of Providence, 
he goes and shuts himself up in the study of pagan Eome, 
It is in the heart of polytheism that he has the best view of 
the splendour of divine wisdom. Why is that ? 

Why did Vico thus reduce his subject? Instead of a 
city, why does he not embrace the world ? And why is this 
city pagan Eome, and not the Eome of the popes ? Because 
that liberty, of which he stood in need to interpret facts, 
would have failed him in treating a Christian epoch; because, 
whilst he was maMng a work of religious philosophy, he ap- 
peared to be making only a work of erudition ; because, at 
that period of regeneration, it was natiu-al that Eome should 
seem the classic model of every city and every legislation, and 
thence there was but one step to present his history as the 
abridged formula of the eternal will of Providence, among 
all the nations of the universe. 

By convejang the idea of Providence into the very middle 
of Paganism, he did, moreover, what was essentially new. 
Till his time, religious writers had been wiEing to see in the 
forms of worship of antiquity (and this is even now the sen- 
timent of many), nothing but unbridled error, frenzy with- 
out soul. Vico, on the contrary, asserted that divine wis- 
dom made use of those forms of polytheism in order to 
communicate, I had almost said to reveal, itself to the 
Barbarians and the Gentiles. He thus makes, in some 
respects, Pro^ddence the accomplice of Paganism ; he shows 
that under the figm-e of those reproved deities is con- 
cealed the purest part of the ideas and substance of ancient 
nations. 

In tliis respect, how much is he superior by divination to 
Bossuet himself! Bossuet acknowledges in magnificent 
terms the wisdom of the institutions of the ancients ; but 



80 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



he does not perceive that the essence of these laws is con- 
tained in the principle of those religions which fill him with 
horror. Because he has seen them principally in their de- 
cline, he cannot resolve to bestow the least esteem npon those 
pagan revelations, or recognise the slightest di\ine reflection 
in those creeds, legends, and that Church of the Gentiles ; 
all the political institutions of the ancients seem according 
to him to have no other basis than themselves. Vico, on the 
contrary, without any criticism, it is true, established a sort 
of pagan Catholicism, the forerunner of modern Catholicism. 
He presents this example, unparalleled in the world, of a 
book in which almost all the details are false, but the idea of 
which is so essential, that it bm'sts forth and seizes you as 
the only reality among all the fictions collected by fancy and 
chance. 

Did you never make this simple reflection ? The modems 
admire the ancients in theii* arts, laws, and institutions. 
Now, all these are derived from their religious belief ; whence 
it follows that that som-ce could not have been originally so 
poisonous as they pretend. 

Vico sees, like Bossuet, that the civil world is submitted 
to the government of Providence ; but he does not, like 
him, stop short at this general thought ; he approaches much 
nearer the living truth. To say that empu-es are moved 
by divine ideas, is to remain still in the abstractions of 
Plato. This is Vico's precise originality ; it is that of which 
he was the least conscious ; he identifies, unknown to him- 
self, the divine ideas, the warnings of Providence, with posi- 
tive worship, religions, which thus become, as it were, so 
many partial revelations of eternal wisdom, in the city of 
space and time. 

This is the most exalted thought ever attained by Vico ; 
it fills him with a sort of religious trembling throughout the 
whole volume. What does it matter, if, after that, this book 
is full of whims and contradictions, or if Vico, in the intoxi- 
cation into which his discovery tlu'ows him, tramples upon 



AND HISTOKY. 



81 



details of wliicli lie is ignorant ? He lias sown obsciu-ely an 
idea wHcli has not ceased to grow ; and now it envelops us 
with a blaze of KgM. 

At this point, we are very far, it would seem, from the 
theories of Roman papacy. They are about to re-appear 
suddenly m the mind of Yico ; for he establishes in liistory 
the same immobility which the Holy See establishes in the 
Church ; so that this bold aspiring mind finds itself suddenly 
seized, in its full flight, by the doctrines of modern Italy. 
Ail immutable order of things, a circle of revolutions every- 
where the same, a future ever resembling the past, a geiniine 
wheel of Ixion turned by mankind, hopeless, and without a 
morrow ; ages succeeding only to be repeated, generations 
passing to be fasliioned on the same model ; a city of God, 
a thousand times more pitiable than the city of men : such is 
the last word of Yico ; his ambition is to leave no issue to the 
human race to escape its formula of immutability. 

Italy, such as Ultramontanism made her, could reveal every 
law, except that of development ; she understood everything 
in man, excepting Hfe. 

There are, generally speaking, two philosophies of history, 
one taking its point of view in the ancient law, and the other 
being inspii-ed by the new. According to the point of view 
of the Old Testament, God, ha\ing retired beyond the con- 
fines of time, presides from afar from the highest heaven, over 
the outward movements of history ; he acts from without ; 
sometimes he withdi'aws, and abandons the nations, as if 
there was an interregnum of Providence ; he vanishes, tlien 
re-appears, and surprises States as they begin to awake ; he 
leaps, as it were, at a bound, from ages to ages ; in this en- 
tirely biblical march, none can foresee his designs. 

There is another philosophy of history. In the most pro- 
foundly Christian point of view. Providence acts in a much 
more intimate manner ; God no longer inhabits the invisible 
heights alone ; nor does he any longer act by sudden fits and 
starts. He is become incarnate ; he is made luan, and lives 
E 5 



82 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



in the hearts of nations and states. In this sense, history is 
an eternal Gospel, wholly filled with the inward God ; he it is 
who speaks and moves in the vast bosom of nations ; he acts 
outwardly from witliin, unintemiptedly ; he dwells in the 
heart of things, he fashions the inward spiiit of emph-es, and 
events are nothing more than the consequence which he aban- 
dons to man; overliving, he commimicates life. In human 
things, he is the spirit of development and progi-ess supplant- 
ing immutability and despotism. 

Vico wrote universal history in a pagan, and Bossuet in a 
biblical, spirit. It still remains to be written in the renewed 
spirit of Christianity. 

In this point of view, the philosophy of revelation becomes 
a possibility. Instead of casting an interdict upon almost all 
ages, I see them aU proceeding fr-om God, gradually approach- 
ing the light and life. Each brings its image, rite and 
thought to that tradition in which they ought all to be repre- 
sented. I no longer find any profane history ; every histoiy is 
sacred to me, because I recognise in every one the reflection 
of something divine, without which it would not subsist. 
Ought I, because Chiistianity has exalted me, to look fr'om 
my eminence only with contempt upon that unknown crowd 
of my bretliren, who, from one worship or another, are climb- 
ing up towards this splendour ? Is Jehovah to be henceforth 
as nothing to me, because I may perceive some rays of his 
sublimity in the god of India and Persia? Does Christ 
vanish from me, because in the most distant ages I find, to 
my astonishment, barbarian Clmsts, incarnate like liim, and, 
like him, born of a pm'e vii'gin, those sacred presentiments 
by which humanity prepares itself to receive the good news of 
Judea ? Do the Hebrew prophets speak less to my under- 
standing, because I meet with the form of their visions in the 
mutilated images of Persepolis ? 

Just the contraiy : the more I discover resemblances of this 
sort, the more keenly I feel everywhere the principles of one 
same faith, the ruins of a vast Church which will one day be 



AND HISTORY. 



83 



repaired, and unite whatever lias been scattered by tlie breath 
of time. I see before me that vast di\ine city being built 
from the beginning of things, ha^dng been founded, not only 
upon the word of a nation, but upon the word of all, who, at 
different degTees, tend towards the same faith, and bear each 
the testimony of a part of the truth, 

"What is, fundamentally, the life of humanity? A per- 
petual movement to come from and retima to God. The 
Eastern civilization reposes in him ; the Grreek world comes 
from him, and the middle ages retmm to him, but with more 
plenitude and depth; for that great God of histoiy is not 
simply a word of the schools, — an abstraction ; he lives, he 
advances. And in this movement he di-ags the moral world 
with him towards unknown heavens. 

I ask myself, in the system of Ultramontanism, what can be 
the manifest end and aim of history : as for antiquity, the end 
is clearly defined ; it was to prepare the way for the Hebrew 
people. Do not imagine I find this end too narrow ; it co- 
incides vdth the very idea of Christianity ; the Hebrew people 
having had the most exalted idea and revelation of the East, 
it is reasonable to show aU the rest of the world converging 
on that side. But it is very different with respect to the 
system of the Eoman Chui-ch applied to new times. By as 
much as it satisfies antiquity, by so much it is thwarted by 
Providence in whatever concerns the modern world. 

It is perhaps thi'ough a secret instinct of these contradic- 
tions that neither Bossuet, nor any one since him, has endea- 
vom-ed to continue this system till our days. To the question, 
What is the visible aim of modern history ? Ultramontanism 
must answer. The visible triumph of papacy. But to compose 
a philosophy of history which may be properly its o\m., it 
must show that every fact, for the last thi'ee ages, tends evi- 
dently to the absolute power of the Holy See. Now who will 
dare back tliis wager, when the great events of the world, the 
Heformation, and the French Eevolution, aU go in an opposite 
direction? So bold a man has never yet been found ; Jesuit- 



84 



THE EOMAN CHURCH 



ism, that has done so much, has not yet attempted that ; and 
Ultramontauism has hitherto di'awn back before its own idea. 
It has not dared to carry out to the end its philosophy of 
history. 

Many thinkers, since Vico, especially the Germans, have 
endeavom-ed to resume aU the laws of Providence in one. 
You are acquainted with the most famous, that of Hegel, the 
infinite, the finite, and its relation. I shall apply the same 
reiiection to these philosophers. 

They all, without exception, speak of human history as if 
it was finished ; they divide time into certain divisions which 
they call the East, Greece, and the Middle Ages ; -sAdthout any 
presentiment of what ought to follow, they determine the laws 
of the past, and give them as a rule for humanity, as if there 
was never to be any morrow. "VVhy do none of these learned 
formulas satisfy you ? Because you feel witiiin yom'selves a 
whole portion of humanity contradicting them, and protesting, 
— a whole world left out of then- reckoning, — that is to say, 
the fatm-e. 

You are inwardly shocked with rules, which, in order to be 
true, requii'e that there should be no longer any life, and that 
everything be finished. Humanity is, in the estimation of 
these philosophers, a perfectly finished work ; in those for- 
mulas, funereal inscriptions of the human race, the judgment 
pronounced against the valley of Jehosaphat, is published by 
anticipation ; and you feel, on the contrary, within yourselves, 
a lively strength, young powers, exclaiming and proving to 
you that tliis pretended whole is still but a fraction. 

To-morrow will arise other men, other nations, other forms, 
and other conditions, a new humanity which those minds reckoned 
for nothing in theii* calculations. Their reig-n abeady threatens 
to pass away ; the cii-cle they believed shut is open again ; for 
the world is stifled in scholastic formulas. Let us not, in our 
turn, attempt to say to the flood of life : Thou shall go no 
further. The law of humanity ought to be composed of the 
past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us ; 



AND HISTORY. 



85 



whoeyer possesses but one of these terms, lias but a fi-agment 
of the law of the moral world. The true philosophy of 
history is Janus with two faces, one tm-ned towards the past, 
the other towards the futm-e. Accordingly, om- task, such as 
we understand it, is twofold : let us study the sphit which is 
no more, and listen to the new spirit aheady knocking at the gate. 

Fundamentally, the science of the laws of Pro^ddence, in 
history, should be the natural attribute of the priesthood. 
It has been said, and repeated, that this science came to light 
at a certain recent period, — that it is a thing of yesterday. 
No, it is as old as the world; only, it remained identified 
with the doctrines of the Chm'ch, as long as the Chm-ch was 
fuU of life. "VMiose province is it to point out the Eternal in 
the events of time, and recognise divinity mingled with 
human aftau's, if it be not the duty of the priest ? It is, 
beyond contradiction, the most essential part of his mission. 
As long as he fulfilled it, nobody conceived the idea of 
depriving him of the secrets of the Eternal, which were his 
own property ; for, every day, he showed the will of heaven 
inscribed upon the earth : no intellect could demand more. 

Unfortunately, there came a day, towards the end of the 
middle ages, when the eyes of the Chm-ch were clouded. 
Events, which had escaped all her foresight, for a time 
disconcerted her; amid the revolutions which contradicted 
and agitated her, her sight was troubled, and she cbopped 
the thi-ead of Providence. Instead of embracing the whole 
horizon of humanity, she considered, from that time, as 
living and reasonable, only the spot she occupied. Could 
she explain to men the di"vdne meaning of those changes, 
those revolutions, all of which seemed to be overtlu'owing 
her? In that stupor, she could only remain silent, and 
curse. Then, what happened ? It became necessary that a 
particular science of these arcana of God should be fonned 
apart from the Chm'ch. It was no longer enough to curse 
whatever spread beyond the immutable cncle they had traced; 
the anathema explained nothing. 



86 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



"VVliat! in the early ages, and in lier full strength, the 
Church had understood the di\dne mission even of the inva- 
sions of Barbarians ; yet, in the time of her decline, she 
obstinately refused to know the divine necessity of the 
Reformation, the French Revolution, and ahoaost all the 
clianges performed before her eyes ! There was then a 
divine and human necessity that the thread of Providence, 
l)roken in her hands, should be collected and joined by 
others. Minds foreign to the clergy then undertook the 
office of the priest ; they explained to mankind the designs 
of God upon this regenerated humanity; and they called 
this consciousness of Providence the philosophy of history. 
Vico, Condorcet, Herder, Hegel, and Emerson, have done 
for modem times what the Saint Augustins and the Salviens 
did in the primitive Chm'ch ; they have unravelled the coun- 
sels of God, which had remained impenetrable to the eye of 
the Chm-ch ever since the sixteenth century. 

Once more, the priest has allowed himself to be deprived 
by the layman of the highest of his functions ; he has kept 
for himself the sacred vases, whilst others carried away the 
perfmne of the Eternal, So true it is, that in the modern 
world, the perception of divine things, after having ceased to 
be the property of the Chui'ch, has, as it were, ebbed away 
and flowed from it on many occasions ; and, if she do not 
take care, the priesthood of the mind is on the point of 
estabUshing itself apart fi'om her, in opposition to the priest- 
hood of the letter. 

Thus, in less than a century, the Roman priest has twice 
let himself be stripped of two sacred thoughts ; first, by 
Galileo, of the science of the God of natm-e; secondly, by 
Vico, of the science of the God of lustory. Let liim con- 
tinue, one moment more, to allow himself thus to be dis- 
possessed of the science of the living God, and what vnll he 
have left to-moiTOw ? 

If complete, the philosophy of universal history would be 
the manifestation of the divine power in all human things ; 



AND HISTORY. 



87 



and thereby it would be identified with, universal reli- 
gion. 

In truth, ever since its origin, humanity, enveloped by 
Providence, forms but one and the same Church. But this 
Chm'ch expands and increases from age to age ; and what- 
ever pretends to become immovable makes necessarily a 
schism mth mankind. Universal orthodoxy is emiched by 
every new discovery of truth : what at fii'st appeared uni- 
versal, by wishing to stand still, sooner or later becomes 
a sect. 

They thought, by modelling themselves upon the form 
of the Eoman Empire, to have attained the limits of Catho- 
licism ; but the world now conceives a Catholicism far more 
vast, the limits of which are those of humanity itself. 

What are those tumultuous agitations of man in by-gone 
ages ? "V\Tiy is it that nothing he met with was ever able 
to satisfy him ? Why did he always change at last aU he 
had done, and pull down the work of his own hands ? 
Because he felt himself stifled in each of those forms as in 
a sect, and he incessantly aspii'ed to emerge from the sect to 
enter into that vast orthodoxy which is to unite everything. 
He has ever aspired to something more grand, more general, 
a more universal Chm*chj he has ever felt that he was 
capable of a more complete belief, of a more vivid light. 
But, from rains to ruins, and from Chm-ch to Chmxh, he 
has not ceased for a single day to draw nearer to God. 

And a few persons hope, in our days, to be able to stop 
him in this ascent of life ! It would be far wiser to pretend 
to stop with theii- hands the globe rolling in its orbit ! 



SIXTH LECTURE. 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND LAW. 



THE INQUISITION. 

June 7, 1844. 

Our subject fails us ; Vice's work was the last effort to 
restore philosophical authority with glory in the South of 
Europe. The mind being conquered, resigns, and submits to 
violence. Italy, after having pretended to all kinds of 
liberty, has now fallen under the double yoke of the Empire 
and the Chm'ch. The two links of the chain are rivetted ; 
and never was a country more completely invested. Even 
that calm and temperate historian, Giannone, for one word 
about the ecclesiastical finances, was imprisoned for life. 
After him, I seek in vain : I do not find a single writer who 
speaks with energy. 

Silence begins to reign in the South ; but in the place of 
those festivals of the arts and language, which had never 
failed in those countries, I find a dumb institution which 
resumes all the thought of the ecclesiastical reaction in 
Southern Europe, — I mean the Inquisition. Sometimes, in 
the middk; of the most lovely day, natiu-e is suddenly fright- 
(ined into a death-like stiUness ; even the crickets are silent ; 
for a bird of prey hovering above fills the horizon wath awe. 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND LAW. 



89 



I shall not here make a display of the jmisprudence of the 
Inquisition ; I shall not show, in their most horrible details, 
that ideal of moral and physical tortm-e : that queen of tor- 
ments* is too strong a weapon, and one I shaU. not use. I 
confine myself to the spirit : it is the spirit of tliis legislation 
that I wish to show iu a few words. f 

It was impossible for the Eoman Chui'ch not to transport 
its princij)le into her penal code: she does not doubt in 
matters of faith, therefore she does not doubt in criminal 
matters ; for this reason, she designates the accused and the 
guilty with one and the same name.| Y»Tioever appears be- 
fore her has both heaven and earth against him : the exami- 
nation even is a tortm-e. 

When the Chm-ch accuses, she appears persuaded ; aU her 
efforts tend to extort the confession of the crime which, by 
vu-tue of her infaUibihty, she perceives in the dark. Prom 
this anticipated comiction of the crime, are derived those 
innumerable traps and snares laid to surprise the confession 
of the criminal. The names of the witnesses are either sup- 
pressed or falsified. In the least details, we perceive every- 
where this fundamental idea, that the truth is aU on one side 
and the demon on the other. 

Hence, that incredible compound of kindness in words 
and cruelty in actions. Without the least scruple, they put, 
under a form of examination, to the torture of the rope, the 
rack and fire, men whose obstinacy they thought to punish 
beforehand. There are decrees of tortm-e against the witness 
who prevaricates, the witness who faulters, the T\itness whom 
they presume to be weU informed, but who denies, the wit- 
ness who pretends to be suborned, and so forth ! Then tor- 

• Pagano (De' Saggi politici) : Regina de' tormenti. 

f My observations are founded upon a work that I have already 
quoted : the Official Code, or the Sacred Arsenal of the Roman Inquisi- 
tion, printed in Rome, a.d. 1730. 

X II Reo. Modo di esaminare il Ileo ne' tormenti. {Sunt- Uffizio, 
page 2G7.) 



90 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



tui-e for the accused concerning tlie fact; and torture re- 
peated, if he be hardened in denying (se egli stara dui'o nel 
negar). The fact being confessed, tortm-e respecting the 
ulterior truth, the belief, the intention, the accomplices, the 
identity, and torture in caput propritmi.^ Cliildi'en might be 
put to the tortui'e as early as nine years of age ; pagan law 
waited five years longer.f 

It is recommended in the formulas, to speak always with 
exemplary kindness to the accused, whilst they are bm-ning 
bis feet, anointed with lard in the oven, J or breaking his arms 
with the tortm-ing rope. This has been called hypocrisy : 
not so — ^it was the consequence of a principle which they fol- 

* Torture repeated concerning the fact is regulated, — page 264 : 
" Having warned the accused to tell the truth, and that he shall be 
reprieved from torture, he ansvi^ers, &c. ; and if he should ask again to 
be put down, promising to tell the truth, even without having the 
intention of telling it, they may take him down and continue as 
follows : 

" The Inquisitors, upon the said promise, order that the accused be 
gently removed from the torture, and accommodated with a wooden 
bench (leviter de tortura deponi et super scamno ligneo accommodari). 

" The same thus taken down, and accommodated with a wooden 
bench, &c., being interrogated, &c., answers, &c. 

And if he will not confess, they shall threaten him to continue the 
torture, as follows : 

" And being warned, &c., to tell the promised truth, that otherwise 
the torments will be continued, and he will be suspended on high, 
answers, &c. 

" And if he be obstinate in denying (se egli stara duro nel negar), 
he shall again be hung up, and the Notary shall sign. 

*' Then the Inquisitors order him to be suspended, the same, hang- 
ing, begins to cry, &c., or he is silent, &c., warned as above, &c., an- 
swers, &c., and all without prejudice." 

f " FanciuHi die pero trapassano il nono anno della loro eta." Pratica 
del Santo - Uffizio, page 274. Compare this with the Roman law : " De 
minore qnatuordecim annis qucestio hahenda non est.'^ Digest, lib. xlviii,, 
tit. 18. 

J " Nudatis pedibus, illisque lardo porcino inunctis." Practice of 
the Holy Inquisition, p. 272. 



AND LAW. 



91 



lowed out in fuH seciuity of conscience. Never a harsh or 
vehement expression; theii- words were evangelical, their 
actions infernal ; and nothing was left to the sensibihty of 
the judge. 

The interrogatory formulas being traced officially, line by 
line, we comprehend even beforehand, in abridgment, the 
tears and cries, the occasional groans and silence of the tor- 
tured ; he has but to fill up with his tears and his blood this 
blank of tortm-e.* 

It is true that the confession extorted by violence, ought 
to be confii-med in fall hberty of conscience out of the Cham- 
ber of Torture ; but if, on the other hand, they belied them- 
selves, they were given back to be tortm-ed ; which was the 
reason why this legislation could be, at bottom, only a vicious 
circle, which led fi'om the executioner back to the execu- 
tioner. 

I VTish to add something more without using more warmth 
than is necessary to express precisely the truth. I know that 
examination by tortm-e is not proper to the Chm-ch, she 
found it in the Roman law. Only remark this : the Romans 
had felt that the search for the secrets of the soul by the vio- 
lence of fire and sword was in itself an impious thing ; f they 

* " In the said torture, the accused, having his bare feet anointed 
with pork fat, and thrust into the brasier over a brisk fire, after having 
remained silent the space of, &c. &c., begins to cry out with a loud 
voice, vociferating, Ah ! Oh ! &c. &c." (Q,ui sic suppositus nudatis pedi- 
bus, illisque lardo porcino inunctis, et in cippis juxta ignem validum 
retentis, ciim stetisset per spatium, &c. &c. in dicto tormento tacitus, 
ccepit postea alta voce vociferando : Oime, &c.) Sacro Arsenale, 
p. 272. " The executioner pressing him strongly, the accused begins to 
cry with a loud voice, &c. &c." (Ministro fortiter premente, clamare 
coepit alta voce, &c. &c.) Page 274. These words recur in almost 
every page of the sixth part. 

f The Roman law did not trust to torture ; for it says, " it is an un- 
certain and perilous thing, and may baffle truth." (Etenim res est 
fragilis et periculosa et quae veritatem fallat.) Digest, lib. xlviii., 
tit. 18. 



92 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



had very well understood, materialists as tliey have been 
represented, that the rope and the rack have no empire over 
the mind. Accordingly, they never had an idea, theoreti- 
cally, of applying this mode of intciTogatory to a free mtness, 
an emancipated mind, who composed, in their opinion, a part 
of living society. 

To whom then did they apply torture? To witnesses 
whom they did not consider as persons, to those who had 
not yet risen to the spiiitual Hfe of man, who, in their 
opinion, had not yet acquu*ed the freedom of the city among 
mankind.* Well! what does the Chm*ch in the sixteenth 
centm-y ? Do you see ? Instead of entering upon this path 
of spuitualism and equity, which the Eomans had a glimpse 
of, instead of distinguishing, at least like them, the accused 
and the witnesses, instead of completing the emancipation 
of those from material violence whom the pagan law^ held 

♦ Torture is common law only with respect to slaves. All the spirit 
of the criminal law of the Romans is in that. This is clearly expressed 
by the following rescript: " If any one, in order to escape torture, pre- 
tend to be a free man, it is not lawful to torture him before a judgment 
has decided upon his condition." (Si quis, ne qusestio de eo agatur 
liberum se dicat, Divus Hadrianus rescripsit, non esse eum ante tor- 
quendum quam liberale judicium expeiiatur.) Digest, lib. xlviii., 
tit. 18. See all the title de Qusestionibus ; the slave alone recurs at 
every line. — In certain criminal causes, they oppose obstacles to the 
enfranchisement of slaves, in order that, says the Pcoman law, having 
become free-men, they may not escape the torture. (Prospexit legislator, 
ne mancipia per majiumissionem qucestioni subducanttir ; idcircbque pro- 
hibuit en maniimitti ; certumque diem prasstituit intra quern manumittere 
non liceat.) Digest, lib. xl., tit. 9. Among the Romans we find the 
torture in use only for slaves, who were deprived of every personality 
{che su i soli schiavi, ai quali era tolta ogni personalita). Beccaria, On 
Crimes and Punishments, c. 16. "I was going to say that the slaves 

among the Greeks and Romans but I hear the voice of nature 

crying against me." Montesquieu, On Torture {Spirit of the Laws), 
book vi., c. 17. " The citizens of Athens could not be put to the tor- 
ture, except for the crime of high-treason ; but they only applied the 
torture thirty days after the condemnation. There was no preparatory 
torture." Ibid. 



AND LAW. 93 

beyond the pale of common law, instead of following tliat 
progress traced out ever since antiquity, what does she ? I 
would rather not say what ; these words may sound harsh, 
but at aU events I must not shrink £i-om my task. 

Par from enfranchising mankind from this servile torture, 
she applies it to everybody, whether prisoners, witnesses^ 
accomplices, serfs, bm-gesses or gentlemen. She imposes 
upon minds developed by eighteen centuries of Christianity 
that extorsive violence which the pagans were willing to use 
only towards those whom they considered as machines. How 
far, then, is not the Roman Church, at this moment, from the 
spirit of Chiistianity ! She had come in order to emancipate 
all men fi'om slavery; but she drives aU mankind into the 
legislation, nay, the very exception of slavery. If there ever 
was a materialist and Anti- Christian law, this is one 1— 
Equality of torture in a world of serfs ! She had come in 
order to glorify the spirit, and now she strikes the body to 
make the spiiit speak ; far more materialist than the Eoman 
law, she is, in the Inquisition, more universally pagan than 
paganism ! 

You understand by this the meaning of that famous page 
in which the principal "wiiter of the Neo-Cathohc reaction, 
M. De Maistre, consecrates the priestly office of the exe- 
cutioner, whom he calls ihe hond of human society. This is 
not an intrepid sally of wit ; it is quite the real expression of 
ecclesiastical law in the South dming the tlu'ce last centuries ; 
" The ichole earth, tuhich is hut an immense altar, continually 
imbued tvith hlood, the scaffold ichich is an altar, all these 
sanguinary words, wldch I consent to admii'e if they allow 
me to consider them as belonging to the worship of the god 
Siva, rather than to the worship of Jesus Christ, are not a 
sport of the imagination; they belong scrupulously to the 
spii'it of the legislation of the Holy Inquisition. 

It is certain that the executioner is the beginning, the 
middle and the end of these institutions; he begins, con- 
tinues and finishes the instruction; he is a personage wlio 



94 THE ROMAN CHURCH 

never ceases to re-appear and act. M. De Maistre sliows 
him only at the catastrophe. IMiy shiink? He ought to 
have shown him during the whole coiu-se of judiciary action. 
M. De i\Iaistre exhibits him only as attacking the body ; this 
is but half the deed; he ought to have shown him in his 
fiirious stmggle with the mind, of which he must become the 
confessor and the word. He makes the innocent shriek as 
well as the guilty ; he is charged to um-avel, in blood, the 
pure soul of the just and the foid soul of the criminal. The 
judges, the priests are dumb ; he alone speaks ; but he makes 
speak the flesh, the bones and the entrails. Prom that 
language of tortm-ed \dtals he catches, at random, the auspices 
of the justice of God. It is the pagan sacrifice of living man 
upon the altar of Jesus Chiist : this is what he ought to have 
had the courage to say. 

I accuse neither individuals nor corporations ; I am only 
showing how principles are concatenated. That code of the 
Church was the ideal of criminal legislation, as long as society 
remained exclusively Catholic and Eoman : it was impossible 
for it to be otherwise. 

People wonder at the cruelty of the penal laws of the 
middle ages. How is it they do not see, that as long as 
dvil society denied, in principle, the spuit of examination, it 
was impossible for it to apply it seriously to a particidar case 
of its legislation ? At most, it admitted only the possibility 
that it was liable to eiTor. How coidd it have begun by sup- 
posing that the individual might be in the right against it ? 
In om' own time it is fashionable to revile the spu'it of exa- 
mination and inquiry. They affect pity for the disbelief which 
has invaded the world ; and they make of theii- own sadness 
n cloak of parade. Let us lay aside this faintheartedness ; 
and, without allowing om'selves to be enfeebled by ruins, let 
us see where is the li\dng Chm*ch. 

It was precisely this spii-it of examination and Christian 
doubt which, passing into the penal law, changed, not only 
its inflexibility, but its barbarity. As soon as society, rehn- 



AND LAW. 



95 



qnishing her pretended infalHbility, perceived all tliat was 
wanting in the ideal of justice, she understood that between 
her, on one side, and an accused person, on the other, there 
was an equality founded upon the dignity of an immortal 
spirit. In this duel, which is called criminal judgment, 
instead of instantly crushing the accused party, and allowing 
him to open his mouth only to condemn himself, she wished 
to invest him with her own power. She gave him to defend 
himself, the same sureties as those she possessed to accuse 
him. The indi^ddual appears before her as her equal ; they 
both discuss ; and Grod pronounces judgment by the cry no 
longer of the tortm'ed, but of the human conscience. Such 
is the change introduced into the principle of the law. 

Now, was this moral revolution of the mind against vio- 
lence, this development of Chiistian law, provoked by a 
council ? Was it by the Holy See ? No ! But by heretical 
England, by Italy suspected of heresy in Beccaria, Eilangieri, 
by philosophical Erance, by the Eevolution, by aU the world, 
except the Eoman Chm'ch, which perseveres, at least in 
name, in the pagan law of the Inquisition. Whereby is con- 
firmed what I have hitherto shown, that lay society, which 
introduced, before the Chm'ch, the living genius of Chiistia- 
nity into Science and the State, m-ged it also into ci\al law. 
The Chm'ch follows ; Electra cames away the empty m*n of 
the eternal li\ing God. 

The first sign of that new institution was, that it tm-ned 
against the spirit which had created it. It is not sufficient 
that the Southern Chm-ch should lose the precm-sory instinct 
of truth both in science and history; something still more 
strange happened at that moment ; she ended by disowning 
hohness itself. How can I speak clearly enough ? Besieged 
by the genius of her own creation, the Inquisition, her own 
saints become objects of suspicion to her. 

At the time when she was full of life, she recognised, she 
hailed from afar, the radiant glory of those in whom God 
dwelled. Never had she been mistaken in this. See the 



96 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



histor}^ of the Apostles and the primitive fathers. The 
approach of a man of God made them leap with joy ; at his 
physiognomy and accent, they all cry out, It is he, mthout 
ever Inu ing seen him. But now, prodigy ! the Church 
seems to have lost that sm-e tact, which I avlU call the per- 
'^ption of the divine; she sees, before her eyes, grand 
actions, sublime characters which later she wiU canonize ; but 
in the mean time, instead of proclaiming, she condemns 
them. Whatever sm-passes ordinary life, whatever springs 
from pure heroism, disconcerts her; it is a semblance of 
heresy ! 

How is it that those miracles of virtue which the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries w^ere continually producing, inspired 
lier at fii'st only with anger ? Because those great hearts 
lived in a region superior to that of the Italian official 
Chm'ch. They were wiUing to countenance the calculated, 
composed vii'tues of Jesuitism ; such tilings they could 
instantly comprehend wonderfully well; but guileless un- 
vaniished virtues, void of after-thoughts, that soaring on the 
wings of divine love far above the earth, all that appeared 
formidable to her. For was it not an innovation ? 

This is why Saint Philip de Neri is at first interdicted; 
they refuse him the sacraments; he is abnost excommunicated 
for too much pmity. In spite of his official and kindred 
ties Avith the Holy See, how many clamoiu's against Saint 
Charles Borromeo ! Saint John de la Croix, that soul so 
akin to the author of the Imitation, sacrifices himself in vain, 
every day, in the fervom- of the most eminent orthodoxy ; the 
pure light of his intellect dazzles the Clim-ch; and the 
Pope's nuncio casts liim into prison. 

Louis de Leon, the editor of Saint Theresa, is the most 
submissive poet in Christendom. His genius is that of 
obedience. P)ut he is an inspired poet; he touches the base 
of Christianity ; he sings with the soul of Saint PauL'n and 
Saint Augustin ; his strains sound little like the official son- 
nets of the cardinals Bembo and Bentivoglio; is not this 



AND LAW. 



97 



sublime flight a heresy? They cast liim into a dimgeon, 
where he passes five years. It is the same with Saint John 
de Ribeira. 

How was it possible for them not to be frightened by 
Saint Theresa ! What means had the princes of the Church 
to follow that flaming soul upon those sublime heights ? 
Saint Theresa, rapt mth the inspii'ation of heaven, is the 
ideal of those famous Vii'gins by Murillo which fill aU Spain. 
You may have seen some, or at least copies of them, here 
in France. She is ascending upon clouds in a divine tem- 
pest ; her hail- is streaming in the breath of the Eternal ; the 
disk of incantation is under her feet ; her look is beaming 
with all the love of heaven and earth upon the abyss. Is 
not such aspiring towards things above, a schism with what- 
ever wishes to root itself deeper and deeper in things below ? 
They must get rid of this danger ; such is their first thought. 
As a sister of Louis of Grenada, Saint John de la Croix, and 
Saint John de Eibeira, the day came when Saint Theresa was 
in her turn persecuted by the ecclesiastical authority ; she at 
length cries out in despair : "It is time to deliver om'selves 
from those good intentions wliich have already cost us so 
dear!" 

What does that mean ? It is one of the strangest signs 
in the modern world, and, you will confess, the most sur- 
prising of schisms. The saints obliged to deliver themselves 
from theii' good intentions ! The Chmxh striking herself, 
and no longer knowdng her own ! She retm-ns to them only 
when she is warned by the sentiments and the fidelity of the 
crowd. The world brings her back to God, she no longer 
leads the world to him. She wishes to be saved, like al' 
the tilings of the earth, by combinations, or, at the very 
least, by political virtues ; like those governments which, 
even in danger, are afraid of the enthusiasm of theii- first 
principle. 

Whoever speaks to her of the heroism, the holiness of early 
times, and wishes to restore them, begins to be looked upon 

F 



98 



THE KOMAN CHURCH 



as suspicious. Tliat eveu happened to Ignatius de Loyola ; 
when he was only a hermit, eeclesiastical authority took him 
for an arch-heretic; later, policy redeemed the Saint. 

The Itahan Chmxh, in the series of her history, has passed 
from the epoch of the Apostles to that of the Saints, from the 
Saints to the Doctors, from the Doctors to the Legates, the 
Nuncios, the Princes of the Chm-ch ; is it this last diplomatic 
epoch that she wants to make eternal ? 

So extraordinary a situation produced — in the very bosom 
of popedom — a residt which is not less w^onderful. In 
the very face of that ecclesiastical government, which is 
hesitating and has lost its star, I see them making attempts 
at reform, Avhich I must call the efforts of despair* ; these 
two attempts to escape from Italian influence spring from 
Catholic France ; one is made by Eanc6, the other is Port 
Koyal. 

I distinguish the same principle in both : at Port Eoyal, as 
at La Trappe, solitary men of an entirely new species, such 
as papacy had never seen. Give me your attention to this 
point, which is decisive. 

Who had been tiU then the hermits and anchorets in the 
Catholic world ? Men who, from the bottom of their gi'ot- 
toes, remained in intimate communion with the visible 
Church. They collected and stored up their thoughts with- 
in themselves in solitude; and when the day was come, 
they emerged in the government of the Chm-ch ; the an- 
choret becomes a pontiff. Issuing from regions of deserts and 
ruins, Saint Anthony re-appeared in the middle of Alexandria, 
Saint Athanasius in the middle of the council ; they brought 
back the meditations of the desert to the common source. 
The majesty and inspiration of the desert were for them but 
a ])rehulc in order afterwards to ajiproach a superior inspira- 
tion, deposited in the body of the clergy. 

Such is the history of all those who founded CathoKcism. 
The Saints, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil, Chrysostom, and 
Augustin, began by being hermits; later, they quit this 



AND LAW. 



99 



commmiion witli the invisible to enter a communion of every 
instant witli the visible Chni'ch. They were only hermits ; 
they become priests, bishops, and pontiffs ; they tend more 
and more to become identified vdth. the power of the clergy ; 
and by entering the Chm-ch they seem to gTOw more and 
more in God. 

But now, what happens is just the contraiy. Behold the 
saint of the age of Louis XIY., the gTcat M. De Eance ! 
In his youth he went to Eome ; he took a near view of the 
sanctuaiT ; he touched with his hands the piinciple of Italian 
theology ; he entered into the intimacy of papacy ; and after- 
wards, what was the cry he uttered ? Ah ! that cry explains 
aR the rest of his Kfe ! " Eome," says he, " is as insupport- 
able to me as the court was formerly." That is to say, just 
now Eome distnisted her saints, now it is the saints who 
distrust Eome. Let us continue. 

Eance reth'es ; all that Chiistian ardom* is considered by 
the Cardinals and the Holy See as only the whim of a noble- 
man, a Trench fmy ; ficria Francese, say they, a smile ! 
Leave them to jeer that intrepid soul ; whilst they are laugh- 
ing he goes and founds, in spite of them, the last order of 
Eoman CathoKcism, that which expresses -oith profound 
melancholy the imutterably miserable condition of the 
Church. 

It is high time to know what means that funereal genius 
of the constitutions of La Trappe ; since they have withstood 
both time and natiu-e, they are not merely the work of fancy 
of a lord. 

What a strange sight ! A^liilst the clergy are boasting of 
their regeneration, here are men who ^^huige more deeply 
into death and desolation than they had done at any other 
time. They celebrate their anticipated funeral with inex- 
orable sadness. Tor whom have these men worn mouniing 
for two centm-ies ? To whom are addi'essed those words, 
" Brother, tee mnst die ?" AMiom are we incessantly to weep 
f(3r Avith them as over a dead body ? Is it the world ? Is it 
F 2 



100 



THE EOMAN CHUECH 



the Church ? or both ? Here is a mystery we must endeavour 
to unravel ! 

"What distinguishes the new saints, and particularly Eance, 
is an incredible repui^ance to become a member of the 
official clerg)^ The idea of a regidar convent makes him 
shudder : " I ! become a monk ! " he exclaims with a falter- 
ing voice. What then docs this gi'eat heart desire, which 
o})poscs to the piety of Jesuitism the loyalty of the ancient 
French gentleman ? 

He is, with respect to the Church, in the same situation as 
the ancient anchorets were in respect to the world. He 
examines her naiTowly, but does not find in her a single 
sanctuary pm'e enough to dwell in. Therefore, he wishes, as 
it were, to fly from the Chm'ch herself, as the other had fled 
from natm-e and the world ; he wishes his order should be in 
the Chm'ch as if it were no longer there ; the way to do so, is 
to bmy it with his hands. 

A solitude incomparably greater than that of aU the 
anchorets, hermits and coenobites of the middle ages ! For 
such men were severed only from civil society and nature ; 
they remained in perpetual communication with the Church. 
Canonical authority, L'ving tradition, the Holy See, the move- 
ment of that great universal body, reached, by a hundi'ed in- 
visible roads, the gate of every monastery ; Eome resounded 
in every cell. But here, in this sepulclu'e of La Trappe, men 
have raised rampart upon rampart, to keep themselves sepa- 
rate, as from an impm-e and terrestrial noise, from the very 
voice of their Church. " I am resigned," said Ranee, " without 
having any connection with anybody, because I thought there 
were none but what were dangerous."* 

People inquire \\\mi is the principle of this order in its re- 
lations with Rome ; from what I have just said, it is easy to 
see that this principle is despair. The signification of Ranc^, 
his vidue in the history of Christianity, is to have felt, at the 

• Life of Ranee, by M. de Chateaubriand, p. 184. 



AND LAW. 



101 



sigHt of tlie Eoman Churcli, an agony and a dread that she her- 
self could no longer feel ; and liis grandeur is to have found 
this agony incurable. 

Before him the legislators of every order had always formally 
aimed at strengthening the general power of the clergy ; this 
argued a great fund of hope, of confidence in the future ; they 
wished to be associated with the movement of life and tradi- 
tion. In the order of the Trappists, considered profoundly, the 
first idea, the fomidation stone, is, that tradition is closed, 
that henceforth it is useless to remain in commimication with 
it, that the book is finished, that the life of Eoman Catholic- 
ism is concluded, that there is no means of tm-ning over the 
page, that everything is said and consummated ; that is, that 
nothing remains to be done but funerals. Notice the expres- 
sions let fall by Eance ; we perceive him seized with aifright at 
the sight of the maxims, means, and rehgious Macliiavehsm, 
put in practice by Italy to save the Italian Chm'ch ; all his dis- 
com'ses end in this, that before long they will see an almost 
general desolation. This presentiment of desolation in the 
Chm'ch becomes in him the very principle of his institution. 

People say, what affinity can there be between this esta- 
blishment of weeping mom*ners and the modern Church in 
aU the glory of her regeneration ? There is an anachronism in 
that perpetual image of moui'ning, those ill-omened garments, 
those living lamentations before the porch of Saint Peter's. 
Why rend theii' hearts when everything is so prosperous ? 

For my part, I consider, on the contrary, that this institution 
of dread and repentance is what is most suitable to the 
situation (not apparent, but real) of the Eoman Chm'ch. 
Whilst papacy and Jesuitism, and such as Innocent X. and 
Alexander VII., were delivering up Clu'ist to Machiavel, it 
was very necessaiy that there shoidd be, somewhere or other, 
inconsolable men to weep eternally over this downfall. The 
wooden cross of the Trappists expiates, day and night, the 
golden cross of the cardinals ; Eance expiates Loyola. One 
is the consequence and altogether the contradiction of the other. 



102 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



This is a new sight ; a saint establishes an order, like a 
prophetic sign of death, before the face of all Christendom 
Jeremiah the prophet had also covered himself with sack- 
cloth and ashes in front of Jerusalem, and nobody had under- 
stood that warning ; another day he had broken a vase to 
shivers before Judea. Eance does somewhat similar : he 
gives his establishment the figure of a sepulchre displayed 
before the visible Church ; and the Church does not under- 
stand him. 

His cccnobitcs dig a grave every day ; people think the 
grave is for them, and that this has no other signification ; 
they do not see that the last of the orders wears mom-ning 
beforehand for all the others ! They do not see that this 
prophetic grave is growing wider every day in a superhuman 
manner, under the hands of those men, in order, at length, 
to contain all the old society which the French Eevolution will 
soon cast into it ! 

The Trappists have outlived all the orders, as the grave- 
digger outlives funerals ; even now, witliout being affected by 
any of the passions of our days, without at all interfering in 
the agitations of the Chm'ch, they remain standing, cold and 
impassable, like the genius of death ; and the grave they have 
not ceased to dig, still cries and calls for its future tenant. 
These coenobites, such as their institutor "wishes to have them, 
have no longer any human will. Let these living tokens, 
these prophetic figures of desolation in the Chm*ch, these 
modern Jeremiahs, covered vnih sackcloth and ashes, remain 
in peace to speak to the modern Jerusalem theii- mute language, 
until at last they be understood. 

For tlioy wear mourning, not for themselves, but for an 
e])oeh. Tliis order of grave-diggers is the living funeral 
oration of whatever is not immortal in Christendom. 

If sudi be the most profound meaning of La Trappe, on the 
otlicr hand, Port Royal is a second attempt of Catholic France 
to escape the clutches of Home. Let me explain. 

I see arise, far from the bustling world of Louis XR^, a 



AND LAW, 



103 



silent asylum, consecrated to prayer and penitence. It has no 
outward show ; no skilful manoeumng to attract notice. Pos- 
sessing the greatest orator of the day,* they might make a 
show with his eloquence to in\dte the world ; but they impose 
silence upon him, and choose for their common spokesman 
the least eloquent of all.f The odour of sincerity sponta- 
neously exhaling from Port Eoyal, is the only charm they 
allow themselves. Attracted by this perfume of truth at fii'st 
I see men anive at this place who seem to me abeady full of 
Christian life. Saint Cyran, Lemaitre and Singlin remind me 
of the penitence of the anchorets of the early ages. I perceive 
something of the life of the hermits of the Thebaid, whilst, at 
the same time, I hear on its thi'cshold the distant mm-miir of 
the gi'and age : Pascal, Nicole, Ai'naud and Eacine yield, one 
after the other, to this prestige of holiness ; I look upon these 
places as holy ground. 

Eveiy moment, a group is detached from the seventeenth 
centmy, and comes to be regenerated in this holy society. 
Amid all the splendom- of Louis XIY., this spot of ground 
attracts me more and more ; there I recog-nise the imitation 
of what I like best, of what I have read most fr-equently in 
Saint Jerome and Saint Augustin : in spite of what is called 
the pride of philosophy, I feel myself touched by so much 
piety and real holiness, which foi-m a contrast even with the 
pompous austerity of La Trappe. I myself want to follow 
these groups ; I walk in their footsteps, and approach these 
blessed dwellings ; at the same moment, I see the outstretched 
hand of the Chm-ch coming with incredible violence, tlu'owing 
down this asylum before my eyes, driving away these penitents, 
destroying everything till not a stone remains, dragging the 
mouldering bodies of the saints from their gi*aves, and casting 
them in the wind. Let everything be razed and extirpated, 
cries an angry voice ; it is tliat of the Holy See : evellatur et 
eradicetiir ! This seems to me a dream ; all my ideas are con- 
* M. Lemaitre. 

f M, Singlin. See Port Royal, by M. Sainte-Beuve. 



104 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



founded by it : but this dream is, on tlie conti-aiy, tlie gi'eatest 
reality in the seventeenth century. 

In my astonisliment, I try to discover the cause of this fury, 
and, with a little attention, I soon find it. 

It is, in fact, certain, that to escape from the omnipotency 
of Rome, such as the Council of Trent and Jesuitism have 
constituted it, I perceive only one road for Christians ; it is 
that towards which Port Royal was impelled as natm'ally, as 
invincibly as Luther. People are surprised that both pro- 
claimed, with the nothingness of man and the abolition of 
free-will, the despotism of God ; and they do not perceive 
that this winding-path was the only possible one to arrive at 
emancipation. 

To escape fi'om the overwhelming power of the Church, it 
was necessary to bring against it a power still more over- 
whelming ; it was necessar)^ as it were, to exaggerate the 
power of God, in order to wither and annul the power of the 
priest. The tyranny of heaven was a means to escape the 
tyranny of the earth. It was the maxim of the Reformers, it 
is also that of Port Royal : God does everything, by his 
single ViiH ; man can do nothing, is nothing, does nothing. 
Do you not see that this principle contains in itself, as its 
last consequence, the diminution, or rather the dismission of 
the priest ? WTiat do Ave want with him, if ever}i;hing be 
done without him ? Whatever Luther gives to God, he takes 
from the Church. These maxims, far from contradicting 
each other, as is generally supposed, are perfectly con- 
catenated. 

Yes, things were in such a position in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, that man, in order to steal away fi'om the absolute 
power of the Holy See, and the outward Church, found no 
other way at first, than to rush headlong and lose himself in 
the profound attributes of God. That was his only chance 
of escape : every other issue was shut. 

Whether they were conscious of it or not, tliis was the 
fundamental principle of the great men of Port Royal. 



AND LAW, 



105 



Listen to Saint Cyi-an, tlie good genins of the place; he 
explains, in perfectly clear terms, the cause of so many per- 
secutions : " I have so long been a prisoner for this truth, 
that God must first change my heart and reverse it, before 
the priest can undertake to absolve the soul." You hear 
him ; he pretends to give precedence to God over the priest ; 
this is quite the contrary of modern Eome, that gives every- 
where precedence to the priest over God. He proceeds from 
within, the ultimate, the invisible ; Eome, on the contrary, 
win proceed from without, the visible, the exterior. 

I thus find two roads now being opened, represented, one 
by the Spiritual Exercises of Loyola, the other by the Spiri- 
tual Letters of Saint C}Tan. In one, I am a mute instrument 
in the hands of an instructor. This is the path glorified by 
the Chm'ch. In the other, I am set face to face, sobtariiy 
with God, the director of souls. This is the way which 
seems to me to guide great hearts; this is what formed 
Pascal and Nicole. It is the one condemned. 

To speak truly, we have here two different Catholicisms. 
In this alternative, which am I to foUow ? In this one, I see, 
at every Hue, the power of the visible Clrarch looked upon 
with suspicion. Out of ten thousand priests, not one ! Who 
says that ? Once more, it is the Saint of Jansenism, Saint 
Cyran. And, from that moment, what becomes of the 
splendour, and the outward power of the priesthood ? In 
the other Catholicism, on the contrary, that of Eome, I am, 
it is true, with the authority and the official government ; 
but what becomes of the invisible Chm'ch ? T\'Tiat becomes 
of those entirely spiritual maxims of the primitive fathers, 
and the inward spfrit of Saint Augustin ? It is necessary to 
condemn, with Pius V. and Gregory XIII., what the Coun- 
cils of Africa and Orange have proclaimed ; that is to say, to 
thi-ow down in modern times what had been built up in the 
early ages. After that, the priest, being ever present, con- 
ceals from me the inward God. 

Such is, in aU sincerity, my situation. TOat then remains 
F 5 



"106 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



to be (lone ? If I espouse Port Koyal, I have on my side the 
early ages of the Chiu-ch, and the three last centui-ies of 
papacy against me ; if I attach myself to Rome, I have the 
authority of new times for me ; but, as it seems to me, I 
have the whole spirit of Chi'istian antiquity against me ! 

The clergy distmst the saints, and the saints* the clergy. 
This is the summary of all the preceding. "What road am I 
to take between these two Chm'ches ? 

Pascal, you who had a distant presentiment of all, who 
foresaw the perplexity and schisms of om* age, who know we 
do not s])eak here of such things for om* amusement, but 
that we seek truth alone ; you, the martyi' of the mind ; you, 
who see distinctly to-day the bottom of that abyss which 
made you shudder, — what must we do ? Por this is, after 
two centuries, the inheritance that you have left us. On one 
side, the Church of the South : she is still standing ; but, by 
her side, is the genius of deceit whom you smote. And as 
you refused to enter that alliance when it had not yet borne 
all its fi-uits, it is stiU more impossible for me to accept it 
now it has borne them all. I might, perhaps, find peace 
where you found it yom'self, in that Church of Saint Jerome 
and Saint Augustin renewed in the desert. But that Chm'ch, 
where you found repose, is accm-sed ; that holy mansion that 
saved you from yom-self and the world, is razed to the ground 
like a house of infiimy ; you entered into it as into a port ; 
and you entered into excommunication ! On one side is 
Jesuitism branded by you, on the other Port Eoyal branded 
by Home : such is the alternative you have left us. 

What then shall I say in so strange a situation ? I "will 
say that the Christ tcith the narrow arms is not the Christ 
who embraces the world. I say that the Roman Italian 
Church is not alone the Universal Church ; and, since I am 
left no other alternative but Jesuitism or Anathema, I say I 
am ol)Hg('(l to prepare myself a road Avhich is neither the one 
nor the other, neithef Jesuitism, nor Jansenism, neither Rome 
nor Port Royal. 



AND LAW. 



107 



It is not I who speak thus, I should not so easily put my- 
self foiward alone ; it is the end of the seventeenth and the 
whole of the eighteenth century, which use this language. 
Catholicism had divided itself. The outward Chm'ch was 
overthro^vn by Port Eoyal, the inward Church by Eome ; and 
the spiritual dii-ection, which, till then, had conducted the 
world, disappeared. In this inten-egnum of the Chm-ch, it 
was necessary to find an outlet for humanity, or bmy it in 
the gi'ave of Eance. The earth wanted another papacy ; we 
shall see presently what was that new spiiitual power, which, 
in one moment, succeeded aU the others. That ii-resistible 
papacy, which established itseK almost without opposition 
upon the deserted Holy See of humanity, dm'ing the eigh- 
teenth centiuy, I may akeady name ; it was philosophy. 

It had only to appear ; the age submits without murmur- 
ing to this new popedom of the Spirit, because, under a new 
form, they recognise the features of the ancient power which 
tiU. then had moved the world. 

This consecrates beforehand the legitimacy of this century ; 
it has not overthrown, but set aside, the Chui'ch : it has not 
confounded times like a usurper. It is not a bastard age 
which meddles without right with the succession of Chiistian 
centui-ies. No ; it has legitimately inherited the mitre and 
the triple crown, which were no longer worn high enough in 
Rome. It has legitimately inherited the living God ; and it 
is the cause that, notwithstanding the decline of the Chmxh, 
there has been no inten-egnum in the kingdom of the Spirit. 
But let us not anticipate to-day this grand subject ; let us 
reserve it entire for another occasion. 



SEVENTH LECTURE. 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND PHILOSOPHY. 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

June 5, 1844. 

Italy had, two hundred years before us, her eighteenth cen- 
tury : splendid talents, incomparable coui'age, and the zeal 
of martyrs in some ; but all was useless. Society did not 
answer to the call ; we find intrepid masters, but disciples 
are wanting. Persecution, that charm of strong minds, 
draws nobody to their side ; no popularity accrues to their 
name. After these fii'st struggles, it is certain that the 
Church, though stiU continuing to fear heresy, must have 
thought she had nothing further to fear from philosophy. 

There must be some serious reason why this loud cry of 
independence did not find any echo. The Inquisition alone 
would not be sufficient to explain it. The truth is, that 
Cesalpini, Pomponatio, Patrizzi, those gi'eat precm'sor^^ minds, 
in order more easily to escape from Roman Catholicism, had 
placed themselves beyond the very spirit of Chiistianity. In 
their very first flight, they leave the region of modern society. 
Abolishing, in thought, the sixteen centm*ies of the Christian 
world, lik(3 a subtle dream, they immediately attach them- 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND PHILOSOPHY. 



109 



selves to tlie pMosophy of paganism. Tliey continue, with. 
genius, HeracMes, Parmenides, and Plato; they become 
again tlie citizens of Alexandria ; but in tMs violent soaring 
beyond their time, the world loses sight of them. "UTiilst 
they are wandering in the past, li\Tiig society does not know 
them. 

Add also that by depriving themselves of Chiistianity, they 
divested themselves of a certain superiority. That became 
evident, when from abstractions they passed to political theo- 
ries. Being unwilling to admit anything of the Christian 
genius, aU the civilians of this school, Machiavel, Sarpi, 
Paruta, begin by denying the law; they acbaowledge no- 
thing but force. This result might please governments ; 
but it was incapable of conquering opinion and popularity. 
People perceived instinctively that these civilians remaiiied, 
in principle, inferior to the modern Church. Prom that 
moment, it was in vain they struggled ; they were arming a 
glorious past against an inert present ; and glorious as that 
past was, the world was not to be shaken by it. 

When this first explosion of the philosophical spiiit in its 
spontaneousness was exhausted, another generation of think- 
ers was seen in the South ; disconcerted men, each of whom 
redeemed his eiforts by a concession. Such were Yanini and 
Paruta. The former, whom Home bm-nt as an atheist, was 
reckoned a fanatic in England ; as to Paruta, fancy a Ma- 
chiavel, whose sublime language is crippled and extenuated 
by the fear of the Inquisition. He envelops his thoughts in 
the folds of his senatorial language, like a dagger under a 
Venetian c^oak. At the end of his work, when he has suf- 
ficiently commented upon reasons of State and the suspicious 
precautions of the decrepit genius of the city of Doges, to 
redeem aU that, he falls upon liis knees, in the last chapter, 
and makes before his readers a pubHc confession, an act of 
declamatoiy compunction. 

Thus ends, under the teiTor of the Chm'cli, the splendour 
of philosophy in the sixteenth century. The spirit of Ma- 



110 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



cliiavel upon its knees smites its breast and mutters a prayer ; 
tliat prayer lasts till now. 

If Frencli ])liilosopliy in the eigliteentli centmy liad en- 
tered upon this ambiguous path, she would, most assm-edly, 
have suffered the same fate ; the world would not have been 
affected for her ; luckily she did just the contrary. How so? 
She showed the world an idea superior to that of the Chm-ch ; 
and, at the same moment, the Chm-ch felt herself smitten by 
weapons she no longer possessed. She found herself face to 
face with a power which, by denying all forms, sects, and 
particular Churches, and, in a manner, visible Christianity, 
retained however what is most vital in Cluistianity — its 
spii'it. 

As long as they had opposed to the Koman Church an- 
other Church, whether Protestant, Greek or Jansenist, the 
former had been able to seize her adversaiy, and resist her 
blows ; they were forces of the same natm-e ; there Avas for 
that a tradition of controversies v>^hich might last indefinitely. 
If they Avere attacked, so also they had a hold upon an 
enemy of the same fomily ; two Churches struggled together ; 
they disputed about their forms. But here is quite a new 
adversary ; the very fruit of Christianity, the spii'it, the soul, 
which, being developed, and enfranchised from forms, na- 
kedly opposes the very principle of forms ; the body of Chris- 
tianity is on one side and the spirit on the other. Jacob is 
assailed in the dark by the invisible, invincible, unseizable 
wTcstler. This is the combat of the Chm'ch and Philosophy 
in the eighteenth century. 

Let us go further : without leaving the tradition of Chris- 
tian societies, let us seek the meaning of this epoch. Was 
there never an3i:hing like it in history ? Cannot the mo- 
numents of the Church herself show us how Providence 
manages, when it wishes to communicate to a society a 
new effusion of the Spiiit of Life? Shall we not be 
able to connect this accursed grand century with sacred 
history ? 



AND PHILOSOPHY. 



Ill 



What it has been most reproaclied Tvitli, is to liave be- 
come suddenly insulated from all the others : now there are 
times when this insulated situation is of divine institution. 
Let us be clearer. 

When the Hebrews, in order to drag the rest of the 
world after them, are ready to receive the baptism and the 
spirit of the futm-e, Providence leads them fi'om the valley 
and the idols of Eg-^-pt. It conducts them for forty years 
in the wilderness ; there the prophetic people receive the edu- 
cation of the fatiu'e. This sohtude becomes the era of their 
regeneration; as soon as ever they are renewed, they go 
and build fatm-e society. 

In the same manner, the whole of the eighteenth century 
is dragged fi-om its valley of Egy^t ; it leaves behind what 
it had adored ; and the Pharaohs pursue it for more than 
one day's jom-ney. It is dragged apart by those who conduct 
it, into a desert, if you will ; for institutions, customs, even 
forms of worship, whatever sheltered the past, crumble to 
pieces. The sands, where the sea has retii'cd, do not appear 
more desolate ; it is a desert, but fidl of the miracles of the 
intellect. There are flashes of lightning to illumine the ho- 
rizon; they show the way. Modern man remaius there, far 
from ancient society, without any interposer, face to face with 
reason and the soul ; he receives, as it were, revelation and 
the tables of the law fr'om the pine spirit ; his education, in 
the silence of all the other centmies, is so vigorously con- 
ducted that he can never be entfrely possessed again by the 
genius of the past ; at last he quits this solitude to found the 
new city. 

Thus the eighteenth centmy is the migration of the mo- 
dem world to pass from one social form to another ; it is not 
only an epoch, but an era. 

But this era is that of impiety ! Doubt, scepticism, 
the genius of emptiness, sensation, and what not ! It 
is easy to hurl, from the simimit of a complicated or- 
thodoxy, these anathemas against this epoch. It remains 



112 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



to be seen bow miicb foimdation tbere is for tbis excom- 
munication. 

Tlie futiu-e is always sceptical with, regard to tbe past, 
since it takes possession of it. Tbe eigbteentb centuiy bas 
evidently ceased to believe in many tilings ; but, it is equally 
certain tbat tbe gi'oundwork of tbis centmy is a universal 
faitb in wbat is most important in tbe inberitance of Cbris- 
tianity; I mean tlie power of tbe in\dsible, tbougbt. By 
tliat, all tbe men of tbis time are united tbe remembrance 
of one almost necessarily calls tbe otber. 

Wliat ! tbey hiixa against tbem at first all tbe powers of 
the eailli ; and tbey undertake to cbange everytbing, not by 
a regular association, but by a fortuitous concord of senti- 
ments and ideas ! "WTiat is tbe party attacked in want of? 
Is it force, ricbes, power, or tbe possession of ages ? And 
a few -wi'iters, wbo bardly know eacb otber, are about to de- 
stroy all tbat by tbe magic of a -word ! 

Tbey bebeve so steadfastly in tbougbt, tbat tbey are per- 
suaded all tbe rest is notbing, tbat an idea is sufficient to 
regenerate and nourisb tbe Avorld, and tbat bumanity possesses 
in itself enougb moral energy to cast off all tbe bm'den of 
ages, and re-model, at a given moment, a new world, upon a 
new ideal ! Ai'e tbese materialists ? Ai-e tbese sceptics, wbo 
bebeve tbat a soul is sufficient to create a new universe? 
And people bave wisbed to exclude from tbe b\dng tracbtion 
of Frcncb pbilosopby tbese men, wbo will be ever its focus ! 
Because tbey did not find in J. J. Rousseau a display of sclio- 
lastic formulas, I bave known tbe time wben tbey refused 
him tbe title of pbilosopber ; without reflecting tbat we may 
handle and display formulas all our bfe without having in the 
least degi-ee tbe pbilosopbical spuit, which is tridy tbe spirit 
of creation. 

There is nobody who has not bebeved himseE obbged to 
cast the stone at tliis aduUcrous age. The truth is, the classi- 
fiers of schools know not what to do \Aath these gigantic figures; 
they, bke botanists, want perfectly dead systems, that they 



AND PHILOSOPHY. 



113 



may put in methodical order in tlieir paper cases : but men 
wlio are altogether speech, action, reality, living systems, — 
what a perplexity ! This is not the abstraction of life, it is 
life itself. 

T\Tiere were we going by that naiTow way ? We were 
placing in the first rank of philosophers, Eeid and Dugald 
Stewart, because those honest writers assm-ed us, one day, that, 
according to common sense, they consented to believe in the 
intelligence. And we were banishing from this pretended 
spiritualism our own great men, who, by an heroic impidse 
of the soul, founded in the eighteenth centmy the real spi- 
ritual kingdom ! We were imprisoning om-selves in the insu- 
lar letter of I know not what Scotch philosophy, and we were 
leaving the highway, the national path, the royal road of 
the tradition and word of life ! Let us hasten to retui'n. 

Tes, let us retm-n to the intelligence of that grand century, 
and not amuse om-selves with words. Whoever does not see 
a philosophy make a parade of spiritualism, accuses it of 
having understood only matter; let us enter deeper into 
things. 

It is not sufficient for a philosophy to mm'miu- outwardly a 
formula of idealism or heroism, to belong reaUy to the king- 
dom of the Spiiit. We may be very materiahst, though 
speaking always of idea. EeciprocaUy, an age that makes no 
parading pretension to ideahsm, but that puts it in practice 
and makes it pass into life, such a one is really an idealist 
age ; it makes of spiiituaKsm a reahty. Now, let them show 
me in aU the past a period that ever had more faith in the 
soul, that ever showed more, that ever used more, or that 
ever had less need of physical strength and natm'e to conquer. 
It is the moment when speech, till then buried in mystery, 
becomes life and reality. In a political point of view, France 
was crushed by the enemy; to judge of her only with the 
eyes of the body, you woidd believe her powerless ; it is, on 
the contraiy, the moment when she reigns A\ith undisputed 
power over the universe; her arms are tied, but she com- 



114 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



mands the world. What then is this, but the reign of the 
Spirit? Because it has become visible, do you no longer 
perceive it ? 

"When it formerly dwelled in the Church, and was veiled, 
you supposed it present. It leaves the Church, and passes 
into the century ; and because it is nearer you, do you not 
know it ? 

Ah ! we have sinned against that century ; and, in saying 
so, I accuse nobody in particular; but I am in accordance 
with the highest philosophical authority of our age. AMiilst, 
in oiu* countiy, e^^ery man who pretends to philosophy thinks 
it becoming to begin by denjdng that eminently Erench cen- 
tury, it is not extraordinary that the master mind of abstrac- 
tion, a foreig-ner, Hegel, hails it, on the contrary, as the 
fundamental era of the mind?* The only enthusiastic page, 
perhaps, that this sublime genius ever wrote, marks the 
spirituabst genius of om* eighteenth century. After tliis, Avill 
anybody have the corn-age to see in this heroic moment of the 
himian mind nothing but what schools call the doctrine of 
sensation?! 

Let us ascend to the cause of all we see, and let us speak 
seriously. After the double invasions of 1814 and 1815, 
oppressed by a milUon of enemies, the spirit of France seemed 
for a moment, to have lost itself. The genius of the eighteenth 
centiu*y had had the French Eevolution for its apostle in the 
world ; this revolution was conquered ; how shall we explain 
tliis mystery ? Let us accuse nobody ! The circumstances 
were overwhelming, and perhaps we should not have done 
otherwise. 

The first thought that struck certain men was to blame the 
eighteenth century. They bebeved that heaven had just pro- 
nounced against it, and that nations had armed to abolish 
it ; fearing to be env(4oped in what they imagined to be its 

• Das Geistreich selbst. 

f In Italy, Rosniini continues this desultory warfare, long after it is 
over. 



AND PHILOSOPHY. 



115 



defeat, they thought proper to deny it. After having sacriticed 
the national flag, they sacrificed, one after the other, Voltaire, 
Rousseau, and aE. the representatives of this period: they 
sacriticed themselves. Thus, persuaded that it was not only 
to escape defeat, but to become allied with the conquerors, 
they placed themselves beyond the confines of reality and 
life. In this abstraction, which was, fundamentally, a real 
void, many imagined that they occupied an immutable rock, 
far above aU the agony of their comitry. 

From this empty sophism, they came to the conclusion that 
nobody had been vanquished at Waterloo ; that, from that 
moment, it remained only to embrace the law and the future 
arising fi'om that day. With a httle subtlety, they became 
resigned to accept for ever as a victory, without a reply to 
anybody, what aU France persevered in lamenting as an un- 
foreseen overthi'ow, from which it was absolutely necessary to 
rise again. 

In fact, upon that field of battle was abandoned -R-ithout 
bmial, as a pledge of reconciliation, what they believed to be 
a great dead body, aU the eighteenth centmy. They gave up 
without ransom each of those splendid glories, each of those 
spii-its of intelligence who had borne the banner of Trance. 
It was the worst of capitulations. You know what took place 
when any ancient city was captm-ed ; the fust thought of the 
conquerors was to pOlage the Lares and Penates. They 
treated the Trench Eevolution in the same manner; they 
gave up to the past the Penates and the Lares of the futm-e. 
- This explains many things to us. Those spirits had among 
other missions that of combatting the dead letter; they 
seiTed as barriers to the world against the enterprises of 
Ultramontanism. These barriers being removed by us, in 
a moment of weakness, what afterwards happens ? The men 
of the past retmn by issues which they have not even had 
the power to open ; they march over ruins which they knew 
not how to make. 

But these pretended ruins arise again of themselves ; and 



116 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



the genius of tlie eigliteentli ceiitmy, which they thought 
overthrown, has but developed and strengthened itself in the 
world. After 1814 and 1815, it was life itself that we 
abandoned, thinking we were only giving up ashes. If 
people had aspired to higher thoughts, they would have seen 
distinctly that Waterloo was not the last word of Prance, but 
that it was one of those days for which revenge is taken 
sooner or later, under one form or another, and that from 
that time, the worst of philosophical conclusions was to aban- 
don and immolate the representatives of French progress. 

In fact, this is what was passing abroad in this respect. 
WTiilst we were giving up om- moral force, and France was, 
like Samson, giving her hair to be shorn, it happened that all 
men who pretended to an extraordinary influence over their 
epoch, put themselves in intimate communication with our 
eighteenth centmy. 

At the moment it was a mark of good taste in France to 
deny Voltaii-e, he took refuge with Goethe. Goethe welcomed 
that gi-eat exile; he learned from him the magic of com- 
municating life and electricity to midtitudes. He translated 
Diderot. Lord Byron became the disciple of J. J. Rousseau ; 
he tried to combine at once the soul of the author of the 
Confessions and that of the old man of Ferney. With the 
vast horizon which it now opens, the Profession of faith of 
the Vicar of Savoy re-appears in other terms, in that philo- 
sophical theology which extends from Kant to Schleiermacher. 
Do not the vast works of the greatest critic of that time, 
M. de Wette, seem very often commentaries upon opinions 
ventured by Voltaire ? 

Thus, after immense works, they returned to the results 
perceived by the eighteenth centmy ; Hegel proclaimed their 
metaphysical depth, Goethe their literature as the som'ce of 
life; and De Wette confirmed their criticism; so that we 
may say that all the contemporary movement is a new de- 
velopment, a new power of the spirit of that same century. It 
was denied among us at the moment it remained a conqueror. 



AND PHILOSOPHY. 



117 



Let us then again liail those magnificent hostages ! They 
return to us well proved and glorified by exile ; they have 
done abroad the work of Trance, when she thought herself 
abandoned by men and Grod ! They conquered wliilst we 
gave over struggling ; they were said to be dead, and they 
have fought better than the h^dng. But if they retm-n, it is 
with a new meaning ; let us replace them in om* minds in 
their proper places. It wiU be the way to efi'ace the most 
visible trace of the devastation which foUows defeat. 

I watch, for forty years, the reign of one man who is in 
himself the spiritual dii-ection, not of his country, but of his 
age. From the comer of his chamber, he governs the king- 
dom of Spii'its; intellects are every day regulated by his; 
one word wiitten by his hand traverses Em'ope in a moment. 
Princes love, and kings fear him ; they think they are not sure 
of their kingdom if he be not with them. "Whole nations, on 
their side, adopt mthout discussion, and emulously repeat, 
eveiy syllable that faUs from his pen.. Wko exercises this 
incredible power, which had been nowhere seen since the 
middle ages ? Is he another Gregory VII. ? Is he a pope ? 
No, — ^Voltah-e. 

How is it that the power of the former had passed to the 
latter ? Is it possible that the whole earth was the dupe of an 
evil genius, sent by heU ? How is it that this man sat down 
without opposition upon the spiritual throne ? Because, first 
of all, he did very often the work reserved in the middle ages 
for papacy alone. "VMierever violence and injustice show 
themselves, I behold him smiting them with the anathema of 
the Spu'it. What did he care whether the violence was named 
Inquisition, Saint Bartholomew, or Holy War ? He placed 
himself upon a liigher ground than the papacy of the middle 
ages. Havdng a sovereign sway over all sects, all forms of 
worship, it was the fii'st time that ideal justice was seen 
scourging violence and lying wheresoever they appeared. 

The Chm'ch (nobody denies it) had committed great faults ; 
it was necessary that they should be sooner or later chas- 



118 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



tised; and as they were crimes against the Spii-it, it was 
necessary that she should be punislied by the flagellations of 
the Sjiirit. Voltaire is the destroying angel sent by God 
against liis sinfid Church. 

He shakes, with temble laughter,* the doors of the Church, 
which, pkiced by Saint Peter, had been opened for the Borgias. 
It is the laugliter of the universal Spirit, which treats with 
disdain all particidar forms, as so many deformities ; it is the 
ideal sporting with the real. In the name of the mute gene- 
rations which the Chiu'ch ought to have consoled, he arms 
himself with aU the blood she has shed, all the bm-ning stakes, 
all the scaffolds she had raised, and which were sooner or 
later to fall back upon her. This ii-ony, mingled with anger, 
does not belong to one individual or one single generation ; 
it is re-echoed by the laughter of aU. the iH-used generations, 
of all the tortured dead, Avho remembering that they found 
upon earth violence instead of gentleness, the wolf instead of 
the pascal lamb, are, in their tm-n, convidsed with laughter, 
even .at the bottom of their sepulclu'es ! 

What makes the anger of Voltaii'e a grand act of Provi- 
dence, is, that he strikes, reviles and overwhelms the infidel 
Church, with the weapons of the Christian Spirit. Ai'e not 
humanity, charity and brotherhood, sentiments revealed by 
the Gospel ? He turns them with irresistible strength against 
the false doctors of the Gospel. The angel of wrath pom-s, 
from the Bible, sulphur and brimstone at once, amid the 
howling of the winds, upon the condemned cities ; the spirit 
of Voltaire thus strides upon the surface of the divine city ; 
he strikes at once with the fiery sword of sarcasm. Pie pours 
out the gall and embers of ii-ony. When he is tired, a voice 
arouses him, crying, Go on ! Then he begins again ; he 
grows fierce ; he bmies what he has abeady undermined ; he 
shakes down what he has abeady shaken; he dashes to 
shivers AA hat he has ah'cady broken ! Por so long a task, 



Isaiah, ch. xxviii,, v. 11. 



AND PHILOSOPHY. 



119 



never interrupted and ever successful, is not the work 
of one individual; it is the vengeance of God deceived, 
who makes use of the ii'ony of man as an instrument of 
wi-ath ! 

No, that man does not act of himself ; he is guided by a 
superior power. At the very time he is overthi'omng with 
one hand, he founds with the other ; and this is the miracle 
of his destiny. He employs all liis sarcastic faculties to 
overtlu'ow the barriers of particular Churches ; but there is 
another man \^'ithin him, who, full of fervom-, establishes 
upon the ruins the orthodoxy of common sense. 

He feels at every nerve, falsehood, deceit and injustice, 
not only at a moment of time, but in every throb of man- 
kind. The different Chm'ches had founded Chiistian law 
only for themselves. Yoltaii'e makes of Christian law the 
common law of humanity. Before him, they called them- 
selves universal ; and this universality was confined to the 
thi-eshold of one communion, one particular chm-ch ; whoever 
did not belong to it was beyond the Evangelical law. Yol- 
taire wraps the whole earth in the law of the Gospel ! 

Where did that old man of eighty-fom*, I ask you, derive 
the strength to plead to his last hour for the families Cala, 
Sirven, Labarre, and so many men Avhom he did not know ? 
TMiere did he learn to feel himself the contemporary of every 
century, and to be wounded in his inmost soid by some 
individual violence or other, perpetrated fifteen huncbed years 
ago ? What means that imiversal protestation every day 
against force, and that indignation Avhich neither distance of 
space nor ages of ages are able to calm ? What does that old 
man want, who has but breath, and Avho however makes 
himself the fellow-citizen, the advocate, the journalist, of aU 
present and past societies ? 

Every morning he awakes, aroused and besieged by the 
cries of extinct generations and civilizations ! Amid the 
tumidt, the avocation of the eighteenth centmy, a cry, a single 
sigh uttered by Thebes, Athens, Ancient Home, or the 



120 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



Middle Ages, possesses, besieges and torments him ; it even 
prevents him from sleeping- ! On the 24th of August, Saint 
Bartholomew's day, he has a fever ! Por him, histoiy is 
not a science, but a crjdng reality. What is this strange 
instinct impelling this man to be everywhere sensible and 
present in the past ? TMience comes this new^ charity which 
traverses time and space ? 

Tell me, I beseech you, w^hat is tliis, if it be not the Chris- 
tian Spii'it itself, that Universal Spirit of the bond of union, 
of brotherhood and \dgilance, living, feeling, and ever re- 
maining in close communion with all present and past 
humanity ? That is why the earth proclaimed that man as 
the living voice of hiunanity in the eighteenth centmy. They 
were not deceived by appearances ; he tore up the dead letter, 
and let the universal spirit burst forth. That is why we 
proclaim him still. 

But candidly, wdth what did they oppose liim? What 
adversary ever attempted to wrestle with him ? In the camp 
of the past, w^here was found a wrestler, who, to conquer 
Voltaire, would have been obliged to show himself more 
vigilant, more fei-vent, and more universal than he, in the 
cause of justice against force and violence ? 

In the hurried march of om- centmy, dust has been raised 
to heaven imder the feet of ncAv generations ; and some people 
have exclaimed joyfully, Voltaire has disappeared ; he has 
perished in the gulf with all his renown ! But this was one 
of the artifices of real gioiy ; and ordinary souls alone are the 
dupes of them. The dust is laid again ; the spirit of light, 
which they believed extinct, re-appears, and laughs at the 
false joy of darkness. Like one raised from the dead, he 
shines with purer splendour ; and the age that in the begin- 
ning had muttered a denial, confirms in the end whatever is 
immortal in his genius. 

The grand work of Voltaii'e is necessarily in relation with 
Catholicism ; even in chastising it, Voltaire attacks it with its 
own weapons, liistoiy. For the tradition of the eighteenth 



AND PHILOSOPHY. 



121 



centuT}^ to become the soiu'ce of tlie fiitm'e world, it was 
necessary that there should be a man who, arising from 
Protestantism, should represent, in the new work, the genius 
of dissenting Chm-ches. That man was Eousseau. 

The genius of the religious revolution of the sixteenth cen- 
tury is, in his person, mingled with the ferment of France. 
In order that the eighteenth centmy be divested of every 
appearance of sect, and be not a Eoman Cathohc revolution 
alone, but a Chiistian and universal revolution, this foreigner, 
Rousseau, must arise fi'om the community of Luther, and 
bring among us something of the spirit of the doctor of Wit- 
tembm'g. His weapons are those of the Reformation, not 
history, but logic, reasoning, individual authority, and inces- 
sant eloquence. By hiin, the soul of the revolution of the 
sixteenth centmy passes into the French Revolution ; and he 
makes, even more than Yoltah-e, Rome ii'reconcileable with 
France. In the scepticism of the Yicar of Savoy, I discover 
no trace of giief. It is a scepticism of hope much rather 
than of eiTor. He confesses himself very frankly, explains, 
and imfolds himself. In this doubt, I perceive a grand 
beginning of faith ; the Yicar of Savoy trusts to future time^^ 
to unravel what remains obscm-e to him. Properly speaking, 
he officiates upon the altar of the Unhioivn God. This is the 
first fomidation-stone of a new society. 

Will you see before yom* eyes the real image of scepticism ? 
It is sometimes to be met with in our days : I mean by that, 
a scepticism that denies itself. Not daring even once to 
examine courageously the bottom of their souls, but casting at 
random over that incommensm-able void an appearance, a 
shadow of creduhty that is never more to be removed ! Con- 
tinuing aU their life this trick of the nund with themselves, 
and wearing, night and day, a gilded mask even to the tomb ! 
Doubting without even confessing to themselves that they 
doubt ! And not allowing us to desh-e, seek, or expect any- 
thing else ! What confusion ! What an abyss ! That sup- 
poses they despair of ever extricating themselves from it ! 

c 



122 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



This nullity Avliich denies itself appals me ; I see nothing so 
miserable in all the eighteenth centmy. 

Voltaii'c, Eoussean and Montesqiiien are the triple crown of 
that new papacy which France showed to the earth. From 
the smnmit of the modern Vatican it speaks truly to the city 
and to the world, tirbi et orbi. It does not address itself to 
the Roman race alone, it invites the great family of mankind ; 
and the scliismatics, whom papacy could never subdue, I mean 
the Germanic, Greek, and Sclavonic, as well as the Latin 
people ; the emperors and kings of nations, as well as the kings 
of the intelligence ; the Guelphs as well as the Ghibellines, if 
any remain, submit to this orthodoxy of the universal spirit. 
Those whom neither Gregory YII., the successors of the 
emperors, Frederick the Great, Catherine, nor Joseph II., 
could subdue, now bend the knee ! They have just discovered 
a superior power, which gives or takes away their crown ! 
Like those primitive long-haii'ed kings emerging from barba- 
rism, they recognised the supreme seal of the spiritual power! 

When France, agitating this tiara of modern times upon 
her brow, called the earth to the crusade, what did we see ? 
Annies without either food, shoes, or clothing, arise fi'om the 
fm-row, real phantoms whom they expected to overthrow with 
one breath. For they had, on the other side, aU the powers, 
and, in a manner of speaking, all the mandates of matter ! 
But those pretended phantoms were the soldiers of the Spirit ; 
those annies Avere the armies of the Spirit, and that is why they 
were as naked as the Spirit. The crusaders of the middle 
ages were not more so. 

I was one day at the death-bed of one of the two represen- 
tatives of the people who had been sent to defend the lines of 
Vissembourg ; and tliis is what that old man said to me, at a 
moment when people do not exaggerate then- thoughts ; I shall 
never forget it : " It was we who set fii*e to the batteries. 
They were surprised at our calmness ; there was no merit in it : 
ice knew very well that the cannon balls had no poicer over us," 
Is this the language of a missionaiy of materialism ? I do not 



AND PHILOSOPHY. 



123 



doubt but there are, in tlie ecclesiastical body, men capable of 
djmg for tbeir faitb ; but should we find, in these days, many 
representatives of Eoman papacy, convinced, in front of an 
enemy's battery, not only that it is becoming to die honourably, 
but that cannon balls have no power over them ? This is very 
different. 

Whence did those men derive that supernatural strength 
which savom's of legends ? In the conscience of that social 
miracle, whose artizans they were. They found it in the same 
sentiment which urged the primitive missionaries of papacy 
among the barbarians ; those missionaries also, new converts, 
were sceptics, respecting all the pagan past ; but they were 
believers conceining all the futm-e, which they embraced in 
anticipation. 

In the triumvirate of Yoltaire, Eousseau and Montesquieu, 
it would be impossible to say which is the pai'ticular idea that 
produced the heroism of the Kevolution ; to speak tndy, it was 
not one of then maxims nor even aU together ; something more 
powerful stiH than aU that was added to it. In the depth of 
the eighteenth century they foresaw the series of consequences, 
and, in a manner, all the series of new ages wliich were to 
arise fi'om it, and for which they were responsible. The whole 
futm-e arose within them, and throbbed in their heai'ts under 
the veil of the eighteenth century. 

To-day they fancy themselves very strong against this spirit, 
in asking it for an accomit of its works. They show osten- 
tatiously the cathedrals of the tliii'teenth and fourteenth cen- 
turies, and ask the new spirit to show those it has constructed. 
They insist upon seeing works of stone made by man, as if they 
no longer believed in anything else. 

If papacy, still yoimg, had been asked this question on the 
morrow of her accession, neither would she have sho\\Ti 
her edifices of stone, but the works of the soul : the past sub- 
dued, paganism dethroned, barbarism tamed, the unity of the 
world prepared and foreseen, the earth for a moment at 
peace, slavery diminished — if not abolished, — and man relieved 

G 2 



124 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



from fate — such arc the works she showed the world, when 
neither tlie Basilics of Saint Peter, Saint Jolm de Latran, nor 
Saint Mary Major, yet existed, and when goats browsed in 
those fickls of Eome where later was to arise the Vatican of 
Leo the Tenth. 

Even so, the works of the new Spirit, which date but 
from yesterday, are works of life ; they suiTOund you, and 
because they are not of cement and stone, you do not see 
them ! Charity extended to all minds ; — a communion of 
nations in one law ; — the executioner whom you, with 
M. de Maistre, made the bond of human association, now 
become its hon'or ; — nations gi'adually di'awn nearer to one 
another by the sympathy of one and the same cause, as they 
formerly were by hatred ; — the dignity of every man saved and 
established upon the consciousness of the inward God; — slavery, 
so long maintained by the Chm'ch, first effaced by heresy ; — the 
unity of humanity no longer only perceived but founded ; — 
divine law passing fi'om a few to all ; — such is the new city 
now rising. It is akeady above ground ; it envelopes you ; 
and the blind still ask where are its towers, and its Basilics 
of marble and porphyi-y ! 

They hear nations meeting and calling to one another, and 
they inquire where are the workmen ! They themselves, what- 
ever they may say to the contrary, are inwardly moved, en- 
lightened and made better ; and yet they ask whether any- 
thing is doing in the world ! 

For my part, if, in the eighteenth centmy, I recognise the 
accession of a new spiritual dii-ection, do not think I claim 
for it a new immutability. Let me not be accused of putting 
the infallibility of Voltaire in the place of the infallibility of 
Gregory VIL I do not pretend to retain humanity in the 
rightecnth century, more than in the eleventh. The spirit of 
either is powerful, on condition that it be developed, that is 
to say, explained by the progress of ages. They had excom- 
municated the eighteenth century in the name of the dead 
Wtter of philosophy. I have shown that the fomidation of 



AND PHILOSOPHY. 



125 



that century is not a system, but a focus of spirit. Extend it 
tlien from tMs focus. Do not enter into that century of life 
to imprison yom'self in it, but, on the contrary, to seek there 
a new life ! The character of the great men who represent it, 
is to have been om* harbingers : they want for their successors 
free minds, not slaves. You will honour them by not imi- 
tating them, that is, by doing what they were not able to do. 



EIGHTH LECTURE. 



THE ROMAN CHURCH AND NATIONS. 

June 12, 1844. 

One thing strikes the least attentive minds. The chiefs of 
political power, in the eighteenth centmy, the princes and 
kings, give way to the philosophical movement till the Eevo- 
lution breaks out. At that sight, they tm-n romid with vio- 
lence ; and one day leads them back to the middle ages. As 
much may be said of the Eoman Chm'ch in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. She was foUo^ving the progress of ages ; mthout being 
alanned, she complied with change ; perhaps she was even 
about to make a decisive step. But Luther appeared, the 
lleforaiation broke out, and a terrible light flashed in the face 
of the Holy See. Prom that moment papacy di-ew back ; she 
rejected with both hands the gift of the future ; eveiy day she 
plunged fm*ther into the past ; and yet her cradle frightens 
her as much as a sepidchi'e. 

The action of papacy is nowhere more visible than in 
Italy ; it is there we must study her to possess her secret, 
since it is there she is completely mistress. This policy re- 
poses upon a vast hope to which a whole nation complies. 

From the beginning, we perceive that this nation Avill not 
share the destiny of others. An extraordinaiy expectation 
absorbs all her thoughts; scarcely does she begin, after the 
invasions under the administration of the Lombards, to take 



THE EOMAN CHUECH AND NATIONS. 127 

the form of a nation, when a hand beckons to the stranger : it 
is that of papacy. The foreign power arrives, and destroys 
this sketch of Italian empire ; with its iiiins are formed, as 
with the fragments of the shield of ]\Iinerva, a number of 
petty states. They try to miite with one another ; but the 
same genius re-appears, and, by its single presence, separates 
them. 

As this genius has no material strength of itself, it is 
always obliged to call a foreign power to its assistance ; so 
that it prevents the national power fr'om developing itself, and 
finds itself incapable of succeeding it. At leng-th, when, of 
all these petty states, there remains nothing but Florence, 
Clement VII., to finish this work, once more caUs m the 
foreign power even against Elorence, his native city ; then 
Italian nationality perishes in its last refuge ; and upon its 
ruins arises the absolute power of modern papacy. 

How is it that there was not in the middle ages one general 
ay from the Alps to Calabria against this foreign power 
which prevented Italy fr*om taking her place in the region 
of light ? Historians have not explained it : it is because 
never had a more unbounded ambition been cherished by any 
nation. At the veiy moment they were being struck, these 
people believed, by sacrificing themselves, they should live 
again in the power which was to command the world ; and if 
papacy had indeed kept her promises, this bringing the Avhole 
earth to the foot of the A'atican would perhaps have been a 
worthy price for the lost nationality of Italy. 

Eemark that in demanding of a whole race of men the ab- 
solute sacrifice of their* temporal existence, they engaged 
themselves to reign spiiituaUy over the universe ; that alone 
could legitimate the disappearance of a whole nation. If they 
made a pedestal for themselves of her ruins, it was on con- 
dition that they should subjugate all humanity. This is what 
they were bound to do, since aU the generations of Italy had 
abdicated one after the other upon this single promise. 

Italy fulfilled the conditions of the contract ; she engaged 



128 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



herself to expire ; and she has kept her word. Has Eome 
kept hers ? 

WTiat would those generations of Guelphs say, (could they 
re-appcar in these days,) who in all the cities of Italy dis- 
a])pcarcd in the middle ages from the face of the earth, con- 
vinced that, in abandoning their countiy to papacy, they 
were giving it to a power which held in its hand all the 
energy of the futm*e ? They would see that power gradually 
pent up within its walls, and instead of recovering dissenting 
Greece, losing one after the other, Eussia, Germany, Pmssia, 
Sweden, the British Islands and a part of France ; by casting 
a glance across the ocean, they would see the most vital half 
of a new world, which, without any hope of reconciliation, has 
escaped from Rome ; and, tm*ning theii* eyes upon Europe 
agam, they woidd find even Spain in commotion. What would 
those generations say then ? That is easy to imagine. 

Is that the sacred policy for w^liich a whole people has been 
wilKng to disappear from the earth? Italy consented to live 
upon a Calvary; she has suffered a Passion of eight centm'ies ! 
Slie has been scom-ged by aU the soldiers who passed by her 
road ; for you had promised that this Passion would enable 
the Christ of the Vatican to reign by yom' means. Instead of 
that, we find, abnost everywhere in face of you, another Chm-ch 
which we did not know. \Miilst you remain where you were, 
other spiritual powers have arisen ; and you are much less 
aflvanced in yom* victoiy than at the time when we consented 
to disappear to become yom* footstool. We sacrificed our- 
selves, and that has been of no use to you. You have de- 
ceived yoiu-selves in your expectations; by deceiving your- 
selves, you have ruined us and our childi-en and theii' childi'cn's 
children ! 

These sentiments were expressed with extraordinary force 
l)y the gi-eat writers of Italy in the middle ages, who preserve 
the true national tradition. As long as there remained any 
hope of saving Italy from suicide, we hear powerful voices 
which conjiu-e her to stop. K the policy of the popes be 



AND NATIONS, 



129 



indeed sacred policy, a nation plunges for her into tlie gulf 
and disappears ; tliat is sublime and perfectly Cluistian. But, 
on tlie contraiy, if tMs policy liave, like the others, only a 
precarious and temporary value, if it be not eternally divine, 
what an irremediable en'or ! 

'Now this doubt began to arise ia the mind as eai'ly as the 
thirteenth centmy. Hence those tenible cries of Dante, which 
were re-echoed in Petrarch and Boccaccio, and, at last, in 
Machiavel ! * Dante especially makes superhimian efforts to 
rescue his coimtry fi'om the illusion ! Never did either Luther 
or the Eeformation speak in more -vdolent terms of papacy. To 
drag Italy from her chimera, Dante wishes to cast her into the 
arms of the emperor. jMachiavel enters into a league with 
eveiy ^dce and \irtue of barbarism, to rouse her from her 
slumber. But the die is cast, and Italy goes on, entering 
deeper and deeper into her dream of universal popedom ; she 
is no longer Italian; she becomes cosmopohte, in order to 
abandon herself more effectually. 

And when everjihing is consummated, towards the end of 
the fifteenth centmy, we must hsten to the language of the 

* " Since some are of opinion that the success of the affairs of Italy 
depends upon the Church of Rome, I want to oppose to them a few 
reasons which occur to me, and I will allege two principal ones which 
do not contradict each other. The first is, that through the bad ex- 
ample of that court, this province has lost all piety and all religion : 
which produces infinite disorders ; because we suppose that good exists 
wherever religion is, and evil where it is not. We other Italians are then 
under this obligation to the Church, to have fallen into irreligion and 
corrliption ; but we are also under a still greater one, which is the 
cause of our ruin. It is that the Church has kept and keeps this pro- 
vince divided; papacy, not being powerful enough to occupy Italy, and 
not having permitted any other to do so, the result has been that the 
latter has not been able to be reduced to one head, but she has been 
divided among several princes and masters : a source of so much dis- 
cord and weakness, that slie has at length become the prey, not only 
of powerful barbarians, but of whoever attacks her; and we other 
Italians are indebted for this to the Church, and to her alone," — 
Machiavel. 

G 5 



130 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



uew generations of ^\Titers wlio speak in the name of tlie 
(Jhiirch. Instead of the triumph which she expected to share 
witli pai)acy, Italy feels herself a prisoner of war. What do 
her most generous writers, the Savonarolas and Campanellas, 
those who sincerely desire to see her liberated, then say to 
her ? Do you know what new kind of remedy they propose 
for so many e\dls, in the name of the Chm'ch that made them ? 
Nothing is more incredible and yet more logical. Savonarola, 
that evangeUcal tribmie, sees no other remedy than to suffer 
still more. Let Italy expect nothing from the earth nor from 
herself! Let her allow herself to be scom*ged and crucified 
l)y aU nations ; let her take for her escutcheon the sanguinary 
(uncitix ! Let her die volimtarily, and descend without defence, 
like Lazarus, into the sepulchre ! Such is then this policy of 
the Chiu'cli. 

To console Italy for her miseiy, they advise her to be more 
miserable ! WeU ! Italy follows this advice of her Chiu-ch ; 
for a centmy and a half she is precisely that Mfeless martyr 
requii'cd by Savonarola. She descends into the sepulclu-e as 
much as a nation possibly can. She allows herself to be 
smitten by all who come to visit her. The seventeenth century 
at length arrives ; let us see, after her passive obedience, what 
the new writers, inspired by the Chm'ch of regeneration, will 
now say to her. 

Chiabrera, Pilicaja, those real poets, are of one mind with 
the Holy See. They have steeped their poetiy in the ferment 
of the rehgious reaction. What word of life wlU they pro- 
nounce? At least, they ^Y^l], doubtless, consider that the 
measm-e of ills is fidl, and that it is time to think of allowing 
their people to partake of the regeneration and triumph of the 
Church : — nothing of the kind. 

The martyi' policy of Savonarola is a season of mirth 
compared with the promises of Chiabrera and Fihcaja. Peruse 
again these confidants of the new Italian Chm-cli ; the same 
word peqictually retiu'ns for Italy : which is, she must utterly 
die. Siiffer, miserable, sifffei' ! cries out the pious FHicaja to 



AND NATIONS. 



131 



her : be a slave or die ! reflect and clioose ! Not one word 
more among tliese prophets of death. 

Still, there is at least in these words an echo of biblical 
hatred, the grating noise of a dead body being cast into the 
sepulchi'e. This vigorous contempt conceals, perhaps, a 
remnant of national life. But, when later, accompanied with 
funeral dii-ges, tliis sort of bmial of a nation continues down 
to om- time, without yom' ever hearing a single chaunt of re- 
generation uttered by the Chm'ch, what do we see? The 
kingdom of Italy, raised for a moment by Napoleon, falls 
prostrate again ; and the writers inspired by the Cluu'ch of 
Rome, such as Manzoni and Sil\do Pelico, resign themselves, 
without even uttering a complaint ; grief for the disappear- 
ance of Italy is no longer in them the lively exaltation of 
Savonarola ; they consider everything has been consummated 
for ages. 

Such then is the summary of this history. A social con- 
tract is fomied between the Eoman Chm-ch and Italy. The 
former promises the latter the universal supremacy of the 
mind as a compensation for her ruin. Italy accepts; the 
i-uin is accomplished ; but the end is not attained. There is, 
in the world, one gi'eat nation less ; and papacy, faitliless in 
her promise, reclines, without remorse, upon that vast region 
of death which extends from the Alps to Calabria. 

It is impossible to behold such a sight mthout deriving 
some lesson from it, at least for om'selves. AU this springs 
from one general cause, that is to say, from the profomid con- 
tempt which the Eoman Church nomishes and entertains for 
nationahties. She presided for ages, without uttering a com- 
plaint, over the dissolution of Italy; in om- days, she has 
witnessed, with the same impassibility, the fall of Poland. 
Perhaps one ciy, proceeding fi'om the Vatican, might have 
saved her ; but she never conceived the idea of uttering that 
cry which would have made the earth leap for joy. Par from 
having the sbghtest presentiment that Greece would awake 
from her slumber, M, de Maistre has dared to repeat that th<- 



133 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



^Teatest evil for her would be perhaps to escape fi'om 3laver\'. 
So extraordinary an impassibility proceeds from one general 
principle. 

How many times do we not hear, even in France, words 
which come to this : The State, and France, that is to say 
oiu' native country, are precarious and fleeting things in com- 
p arison with us, ecclesiastical power, who, as such, are eternal. 
They grow proud of their eternity, and mercifidly grant to 
theii- countiy the favour of rapid time ; they dole out to her 
the years and hom's, reserving to themselves the ages of ages ; 
and it is easy to see that, in tliis dispensation, they resign 
themselves beforehand to smwe, without too much gi'ief, that 
countr\% that France, and those ephemeral people, whom they 
contemplate from the pinnacle of theu' immutability. 

To despise nationalities, is nothing else but to despise life 
in its deepest source. Whence come those oiiginal forms 
which nations receive from their very cradle ? They are like 
the seal of the Creator. Who saw them arise ? Who told you 
that those characters were less sacred than the seal of the 
Vatican ? AVho has touched that divine mould in which the 
great human families are cast ? The nationality of a people is 
to them what conscience is to man. When the Chm'ch sup- 
ported herself, not upon theories, but upon vitality itself, did 
she ever dream of \nthch-awing herself from the bosom of 
nations, who are the real vessels of the Eternal ? The Hebrew 
prophets threatened Jerusalem ; but in her ruin they foresaw 
her new-bu*th ; their lamentation was mingled with joy. 

The nationality of France is the fruit of all generations ; — of 
her language, whose roots are lost in an obscmity as profound 
as that you boast of; — of each of the acts of Providence at every 
moment of her past ages, even before she had a liistoiy ; — of 
that mysterious baptism Avhich every nation receives, on the 
banks of an unknown Jordan, upon entering into life ; — of her 
combats, her defeats and her victories, for a cause the seed of 
which she received, and which grows with her. 

France, the patient work of God, was before you were what 



AND NATIONS. 



133 



you still are ! "VYitlioiit troubling voui'selves any more about 
wliat you will do when slie will be no more, take care only lest 
she siu'Tive you ! 

For if the Chiu-ch separate herself from the intimate con- 
sciousness of hving societies, it is ine\'itable that, in the same 
proportion, these societies separate from her. The social ideal 
which the Eoman Chm'ch offers to Southern nations is a vast 
cosmopolitism in which every national personahty becomes 
dissolved. Italy, the fii'st of the nations of the Eoman race, 
fell into the snare ; she embraced that cosmopolitism, thinking 
that all the world was about to follow her ; but the nations 
on the contrary, being determined to preserve their own life, 
as a gift of God, the consequence is, that she has been stilled 
by those inviolable persons called nations. Let us not imitate 
the example of a people of om- race ; we should infallibly share 
the same fate. 

The real ideal of sacred policy (and it is in this that modern 
Eome disowns it) is not to sacrifice nationality to humanity, 
but much rather to conciliate them both, developing them by 
each other. A considerable number of persons, unwittingly 
obedient in this to the genius of the Eoman Church, proclaim 
among us an abstract cosmopolitism ; it is time to \indicate 
the rights of life. To ser^'e the cause of humanity is not for 
a nation to consent volimtarily to be attenuated before all the 
others, since, if every one reahzed this ideal, it would follow that 
life decreasing eveiywhere at once, humanity would at length 
end in a perfect nullity. 

To co-operate in the real imi ty of the human race, is, on the 
rx)ntrary, for every nation to unfold herself to the extent of 
her genius, and to act for all by li\ing with all her faculties. 
Any nation that \N4thdi-aws from the struggles and dangers of 
existence, that does not occupy in the moral and social world 
the place which God has entmsted to her care, that does not 
perform her entire task, such a nation sins, not only against 
herself, but against mankind, not only against the past, but 
against the futm'C ; she obliges herself beforehand to redeem 



THE ROMAN CHUllCH 



these moments of inanity by future treasures of corn-age and 
life. 

\Miilst they are speaking of that abstract humanity, the 
danger and the type of which are, for all the nations of Ex)man 
(H-igin, at Home, do you not see, on the contrary, powerful and 
courageous nationalities springing forth everywhere, founded 
upon national Churches, in Prussia, Germany, England, and 
the whole Sclavonic race led by the Sclavonic Pope, the 
Emperor ? It is sufficient to cross om' frontiers to perceive 
this ferment of indigenous minds : each of tliese new nations 
carries her own Cluu'ch wdth her. 

As to Spain, do they wish to know Iioav she has kept her 
nationality ? If she has not been so far led astray as to abdi- 
cate like Italy, she owes it to a horrible cause. Would it be 
believed that the Inquisition is what has preserved in her the 
spii'it of race ? Nothing is more certain. By making liimself 
more Catholic than Eome, the King of Spain remained the 
som'ce of liis Church for the nation ; they were too much taken 
up with their dread of the King, to think of the Pope ; the 
national stake preserved, for tlu-ee hundred years, the nation- 
ality of Spain, in spite of Ultramontanism. 

Then let us not abandon ourselves to the enervating fasci- 
nation of that false ideal which, fi-om the smnmit of the Vatican, 
hovers over all the Roman race ; it is enough that a great 
people has perished in the expectation of a deceitful promise 
wliich everything has contradicted ; the experiment having been 
consummated, the sacrifice will not be renewed. 

The political theory of Eome consists in confining the focus 
of di\ine aiul social life to one single point, the Vatican, whence 
it is communicated to the rest of the world ; and, on the con- 
traiy, we feel more and more distinctly that this focus is in the 
heart of evei-y race of men, and every nation. This is why, as 
soon as a nationality is oppressed, there escapes from France 
a cry of ])ain, as if she felt herself wounded in a vital part of 
the universal Church ; for the Church of France is not only 
confined to the Vatican. M. de Maistre's Pope may be able to 



AI\D NATIONS. 



135 



maintain iis in communion mtli the Latins ; but this is not 
sufficient for us ; we want to be in communion with aR mankind. 

Ton rush in all haste bej^ond om* £i-ontiers, and leave the 
Alps far beliind you ; you go on still fiu-ther to seek yom* altar ; 
at length you enter an enclosm*e on the bank of the Tiber ; 
then you stop and say : Here is the Chui'ch of France ! You are 
mistaken. The Chiu'ch of France is in France ! 

We can understand that, in the middle ages, when the con- 
science of nations was not yet formed, there might be an out- 
ward spiiitual power, which, upon the ruins of Eome, taught 
the world, in every cii'cumstance, what it ought to love or hate. 
But in these days, France bears within herself her spiiitual 
dii'ection, her li\ing papacy ; her Chm'ch is no longer under 
the care of a guardian. In order to achieve deeds of a uni- 
versal order, she no longer waits till the order comes to her 
from the Vatican ; she takes counsel dii-ectly with Providence, 
manifested in the universal conscience of mankind ; she herself 
pronounced, when it was needed, her own, " It is the tvill of 
God." Upon this principle, her nationahty, her own hfe, is 
to-day sacred to us. Nations are no longer the mute disciples 
of the spii'itual power ; that power has passed into them, and 
being inviolable, it has communicated to them its own inviola- 
bility. 

These ideas obtain a singular evidence, if you consider the 
part played by the Church amid the events which changed the 
world towards the beginning of this century. The relations 
between Napoleon and papacy contain, in this respect, an in- 
exhaustible lesson. 

Under his Considship, when he was the manifest organ of 
universal opinion, he re-established the Cathohc Chm-ch in her 
rights : everybody applauded. Later, in proportion as he 
strays fi'om the new spirit, he attempts something else ; he 
wants to fin up the void of his empire ; and, for that end, what 
does he do ? He carries away the pope from Rome, as for- 
merly they earned off a divinity of stone or bronze ; he brings 
him to the centre of his power ; that is, he attempts to do for 



136 



THE ROMAN CHUECH 



Catholicism what Henry VIII. had done for Protestantism. 
The more violence the Emperor employs to attract this power 
to his side and envelope it in the laity, the more he shows the 
importance he attaches to it. If he had succeeded in this 
invasion of papacy, what would have happened ? France at 
lenf^h would ultimately have been the representative of Catho- 
licism in the world : that would have been the flag by which 
the world would have recognised her. 

But the religion she had embraced was more vast ; accord- 
ingly, this alliance, which was to have been indissoluble, is 
broken np by the very natm-e of things. The emperor has 
councils which last but a day ; they sign contracts which are 
broken on the morroAv. Impossibilities arise on every side : 
Home and France both shudder under that hand wliich en- 
deavours to confoimd them. The former casts her anathema; 
the latter separates from her ; and Napoleon understands at 
St. Helena that that Chm'ch, that spiritual power which he 
sought beyond the mountains, was all alive at his side, in the 
consciousness of nations. 

Then we see a thing which overtkrows all the ideas admit- 
ted tOl then upon the Holy See. As soon as ever Napoleon 
begins to totter, the pope passes over to the side of the con- 
querors ! But who are those conquerors ? Heretics, Schis- 
matics, Prussia, England, and Kussia ! Thus the Roman 
(Church espouses heresy ; and in order that all contradictions 
be joined in one, this compound, which would have made 
the popes of the middle ages shudder Avith horror, is called the 
Holy AUiance ! 

IncretUble ! It is Scliismatics, the emperor of Eussia, 
the king of Prussia, and the ministers of England, Avho 
exalt papacy. Then is discovered an astonishing fact. For 
the first time in the Christian Avorld, the immense questions 
whi( h had shaken the Avorld, had passed, as one may say, 
over the head of papacy. The Schismatic States treat the 
Roman Church no longer as a living being, dangerous to 
them, but as a thing of abstraction, which enters into the 



AND NATIONS. 



137 



calculation of diplomacy. People perceive tliat the eartli kad 
been shaken for half a centmy, and that papacy had ceased to 
be the centre and end of this universal movement. She ap- 
pears no more, amid tliis grand overthi'ow of modern things, 
but as a party, a sect of Christianity. 

In the Congi-ess of Vienna and Yerona, where the fate of 
the world is decided, what is the part she plays ? She is 
represented by her legates, but another presides over them. 
I ask myself how the representative of such men as Gregory 
YII. and Innocent III. could, without despah*, find himself 
obscm-ely confounded among the charges d'affaires, and the 
plenipotentiaries of heresy. In these assemblies, which are 
about to decide upon the condition of mankind, what people 
does popedom save and protect ? Amid those solemn debates, 
for whom does she speak, when aU. the world is listening ? 
She is only occupied about her material possessions. 

In order to remind people of the mission she fulfilled in 
the middle ages, does she plead for the feeble ? Does she 
think of Ireland, Greece, Bohemia, Hungary, or any other 
oppressed country, when one word falling from above upon 
the table of the Plenipotentiaries of Yienna might have 
changed everything ? Do not ask her that ; her sight is ab- 
sorbed by one spot of gi-ound : she thinks only of Eomagna ! 
But at least she pleads for those whom it is impossible to 
forget — the conquered ? On the contraiy, she sees CathoHc 
France prostrate ; and she instantly demands of the heretical, 
powers to seize the opportunity to snatch a province from 
Prance and give it to her.* 

It is the Schismatics who prevent this murder ! That 
is to say, she sees the Samaritan covered with wounds 
upon the highway, and not only she does not succom' and 
comfort him, but she has but one fixed idea, which is to 
rob him ! 

Has anybody ever heard that, amid the avidity of those 

* The Quartre Concordats, v. iii. p. 93, by M. de Pradt, formerly 
Archbishop of Malines. 



188 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



victorious princes, the prince of the Chm*ch ever influenced 
the discussion by one of those gTand effusions of universal 
charity, which would, in a moment, have restored to him a 
moral authority ? 

Docs he take advantage of the exaltation of their minds, 
that natm^al magnanimity wliich follows victory, to remind 
tliose princes " of theii* oaths towards their people ? This 
was assuredly his task. The prince of schism, the Emperor 
Alexander, is said to have shown some traits of this greatness 
(A' soul. But notliing of the sort is said of Eome. 

When there is any question of re-modelling the law of na- 
tions, is it Kome that proposes the abolition of slavery? 
Tliese questions are debated in the universal conscience ; but 
the universal Church does not think of them. But at least 
the cry of blood will restore her to her mission? "When 
political scaffolds are raised amid perishable passions, does 
Rome raise her voice in the name of eternal clemency ? Does 
she place herself between the scaffold and the world, too irri- 
tated to be impartial? Do Ney, Mm-at, aU those brave 
men, pm-sued by the anger of the age, find a refuge in 
Home ? Does she, by extending her hand over them, save 
their veiy judges from an eternal regTet ? No, a thousand 
times no : amid aU that, Eome sees only Eome ! And Erance 
cannot forget it. 

Ah ! then was one of those opportunities which do not 
happen twice, and by which are judged, as at a last tribunal, 
all the great powers both of the Church and of the world. 
Tlic earth still recking with bloody battle-fields, nations re- 
tiring panting fi'om the struggle, France in despaii*, the con- 
querors astounded. Napoleon alone and pensive in his island, 
the universe plunged into an immense expectation, and amid 
this medley of desolation and pride, papacy, that power of 
heaven, blessing from above the city and the world, especially 
occupied in caring for those who suffer, healing the wounds 
of crippled nations, claiming their salary for them at the end 
of so tenible a day, remembering that France is the eldest 



AND NATIONS. 



139 



daughter of tlie Cliui-cli, calling lier from the sepulchre, re- 
animating her with her sacred breath on the morrow of Water- 
loo, and especially imploring, night and day, for him whom 
she had cm'sed in a day of anger, for the great prisoner of 
Saint Helena, not allowing an hom-'s sleep to the kings tiU 
they had put an end to that iniquitous torture, and, at last, 
breaking in the name of the Christian power the chains of 
Longwood which aU the princes of the earth had forged; what 
a mission would not this have been, if it had only been pro- 
posed ! "VMiat a gi-and sight ! It is thus the popes had 
formerly done for King Richard ! What a manifestation, what 
a splendid revelation of spiritual authority ! Where is the 
man who would not have been struck and moved by it in his 
inmost heart, at the sight of that Promotheus delivered from 
the vultm'e by the Christian Hercules ? I know nobody, for 
my pai't, bhnd enough not to have bowed his knee ! 

But when we have remained inferior to these divine oppor- 
tmiities, they never retm-n ! Then what remains to be done ? 
It is necessaiy to try, by underhand contrivances, to get 
back the world which they had not been able to recover by 
the flash of the spirit, and amid the acclamations of the 
universe ! They must then use artifices, speak a double lan- 
guage, what more ? — ^Why, do all that they are now doing ! * 

Besides, since papacy renounced, at a solemn moment, 
what we must needs caU the spiritual government of man- 
kind, this is an inheritance that cannot remain vacant. In 
the dismembering of the spiritual authority, it is absolutely 
necessary that an authority should be formed, the effect of 
which may be felt by every nation. The Cluistian world is 

* Why do they speak of Catholic policy ? They have lost the sig- 
nification of this word, which we are obliged to restore ; they under- 
stand by it all the rancour and schisms of the past. If we listened to 
them, the question would be to muster the States, and divide them ac- 
cording to the banner of their visible Church. But that combat is 
ended, and will not again be raised. A truly Catholic policy is not 
Roman, but universal ; this is just the contrary of that which they 
propose. 



14-0 



THE EOMAN CHURCH 



accustomed to be ruled by the public voice ; it cannot en- 
tirely dispense vriih tliis invisible conductor. 

The first assemblies of the Trench Revolution had evidently 
this idea. WTiat is the declaration of the rights of man by 
the Constituent Assembly but a confession of canonical faith, 
inanifosted in the name of Prance, not only to a particular 
(X)untry, but to the whole earth ? Had a speech of Mii'abeau 
at that time much less efficacy than a bull? The nations 
whose speech is truly emancipated are made to serve as an 
organ to all, and to plead for one another. 

Our political assemblies wiU then only ascend to the height 
at which they ought to aim when they are conscious of being 
an organ of the new spiritual power. Till then we shall 
)X)ssess brilliant orators who will often debght the ear ; but, 
without theii- knoAving how, their skilful language AviU have 
lost its way to the soid ; it will no longer reach the bottom of 
the mind ; and they wiU be quite astonished, after so many 
speeches, that nations do not retain one syllable of them. 

Either these powers wiU disappear in the decline of the 
West, or 'fi day \^dU come when nobody will any longer make 
a private amusement of public speech, when nobody, at a 
serious moment, wiU ascend the tribunal without feeling an 
inward trembling, as if he had the whole earth for his audi- 
tory ; and he really have it. Then, speech will become 
true and living again, and Avill govern the world as it did in 
the middle ages. Fictitious formulas will give place to spon- 
taneous inspiration. Anathemas uttered by the public con- 
science wiU resound from nation to nation, and chastise, as 
did formerly the bulls of the Vatican, both violence and 
deceit. Either the speech of Christian nations is but an 
empty sound, or it must ultimately become aU that. 

The question is not to overtlu'ow the Catholic city, but 
most assm'cdly to realize it. 

You are present at interminable debates upon public 
education. The discussions are learned and eloquent every 
body understands that a vital point is at stake; they are 



AND NATIONS. 



141 



contesting beforehand for generations whicli are not. How is 
it, that, after so many clever speeches, nobody has yet said 
that the true education of a country of free discussion is the 
permanent spectacle of its pohcy, that all school influences 
are inferior to that, and that it is superlatively useless to 
hope anything fr'om an obscm'e modification of instruction, if, 
first of all, you do not ameliorate, mend, and correct that 
omnipotent and ii*resistible instruction, which speaks and 
bursts forth every day in facts and in the political tribune ? 

How can they expect us to introduce here the life of 
Christianity into hteratm-e and philosophy, if this gTand idea 
does not appear elsewhere, where it might shine forth in the 
reality of the law for Prance and for the world ? How can 
they expect us to teach here that aU the moral dignity of 
modem man is in liis mind, if the public powers, on the 
oontraiy, acknowledge only riches. 

We say this, in om* narrow sphere, because we think so. 
We are believed as long as we are speaking, but, soon over- 
powered again by the splendid denial which the instruction of 
political life gives us, how many hearts are there strong 
enough to remain faithful to the truth of which they are here 
conscious ! Must there be a doctrine for the sons, and 
another for the fathers? How long is it that the Hfe of- a 
nation has been thus divided ? The future is coming to put 
an end to these contradictions. 

Tf our doctrines be true for science, law, hteratm'e, and 
philosophy, they must also necessarily be so for poKty, con- 
sidered in a general manner. 

I have established that there exist in our days two spiritual 
powers : one real, which is in the conscience of nations, the 
other apparent, which shows itself in the Vatican. Whenever 
the former is silent for some reason or other, the latter takes 
the opportunity to re-appear, and threatens to invade every- 
thing. 

Will you then sincerely resist the domination of Bomau 
papacy ? I do not propose to you to copy what Napoleon 



142 THE ROMAN CHURCH AND NATIONS. 

did, to cam^ off tlie material person of papacy : I propose to 
you only to remain faitliful to om* tradition, to carry away 
from modem Rome the spiiit which, at holy periods, caused 
hei- gi'eatness and universality. 

It is not a man you must carry away, but a spirit ; and I 
hav(» demonstrated that, since the last centmy, it has passed 
fee our side. 

You fear the pope ; there is a way to dispossess him with- 
out insulting him as our kings did in the middle ages. Be, 
in the management of the world, more Christian, more 
universal than he ; have towards nationalities that charity 
which he has not had. Tiy some day to raise up the dead 
he has made! Open the gates of the city of life, and no 
longer for a small number of predestined only. Spain has 
been the right arm of Rome, be then the right arm of 
humanity. In one word, try a policy more elevated, more 
sacred and more divine than that of the pope ; you will 
legitimately inherit his strength, and you will fear him no 
more : it is a sm*e way to conquer him without fighting. 



NINTH LECTUEE. 



THE KOMAN CHURCH AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. 

June 19, 1844. 

During tlie pontificate of Urban VIII., an Italian poet, 
Pallavicini, conceives a singularly bold idea; in a poetic 
whim, he imagines Chiist, in Ms heavenly kingdom, repent- 
ing of his alliance with the Eoman Church. Saint Paul de- 
scends upon earth to repudiate her. After the celestial 
divorce, other Chm'ches take the bridal veil ; but they are all 
rejected one after the other. Rather than espouse any par- 
ticular Chm'ch, Chi-ist prefers to remain in eternal Tvddow- 
hood. 

The author of this apocalyptical work was living in safety 
at Venice, under the protection of the Eepublic. A young 
poet among his friends proposed to him that they should take 
a poetical trip together in the direction of Prance. They 
accordingly started ; having anived at the frontier, they tmned 
aside to visit Avignon, the city of the popes. Hardly had 
they entered the town when the friend threw off the mask. 
He was a spy of the Roman Inquisition. Pallavicini was 
cast into prison, and beheaded in 1644. 

This history explains why Christianity disappears aknost 
entirely from works of the imagination in Italy during the 
two last centm'ies. The most sincere believer must always 
have feared lest he shoidd not appear eiuough so in a work of 
fancy. 



144 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



I perceive witli astonishment that, in modern times, the 
Roman Chm'ch hast lost, in literatm-e, the sentiment of her 
own poetry, together with the ideal of Chi-istianity. The 
cardinals and popes write plenty of verses ; but tliis frivolous 
amusement has no longer anything in common with the 
solemn inspirations of the middle ages. Wliat has become 
of the fiery accents of Saint Ambrosius and Saint Paulin, 
which were added to the liturgy ? Urban VIII. writes pagan 
verses to the Cavalier Berni. Instead of the Stabat Mater 
or the Sahdaris hostia, the princes of the Chm-ch compose 
mythological sonnets, at the time when Luther is thundering 
the Te Beimi of the Reformation : Our God is a strong 
tower, ein feste Burg ist rmser Gott ! 

At Rome, Chiistianity is considered as exhausted by Dante 
and Tasso ; thence proceeds the almost official sway of the 
mythology of Marini, the author of Adonis, the poet of the 
Holy See, of Urban VIII., Alexander VIL, Gregory XV., 
and Cardinal Ludovisio. Disavowing, at the same time, the 
nature of the Gospel and of poetry, they ultimately persuade 
themselves that one has nothing in common with the other. 
They give their imagination to Paganism, and their faith to 
Clu'istianity ; that is to say, they break up the unity of 
inward life. 

The Christian sentiment is brought back into poetry by 
heretics : by Milton in the Paradise Lost, by Voltaire in 
Zaire, by Klopstock in the Messiah. And when, in the 
beginning of the present centmy, M. de Chateaubriand 
c/)mpl(!tcs the overthrow of the pagan ideal, and restores 
Cliristiunity to the possession of man enth'ely, in spirit, 
heart and imagination, what is it they then do ? O lesson 
plainer than light itself! They lay an interdict upon the 
author of the Genius of Christianity ! 

Diu-ing tlie old age of Louis XIV., discussions upon Jan- 
.senism and Molinisni* were seen gradually to absorb the 



* See '• Priettx, Women and Families," by J, Michelet. — C. C. 



AND THE UNIVEESAL CHURCH. 



145 



attention of Erance. Tliis was at first a soiu'ce of astonish- 
ment for some of tlie geniuses of that time ; they could not 
understand how people could give such matters an attention 
which they no longer gave either to the petty revolutions in 
the favom-s and spiiit of the court, or to ministerial changes. 
France persevered, because all the seed of the eighteenth 
century was contained in these religious discussions ; for, in 
the Jansenists and MoHnists, the fii'st early signs appeared of 
that change which was about to burst forth in the spirit and 
in the afifaii-s of nations. Even so, in our own time, in that 
ferment of religious discussions which now invade the world, 
I say that a new future, a new order of things, is stirring, 
and that it is the duty of all weU-disposed men to work to 
prepare its advent. 

Those who have been the most sui-prised by this irruption 
of religious questions are those who make an exclusive pro- 
fession of poHtical life. When we first signalized these new 
symptoms, many exclaimed that we were resisting a phantom ; 
but when all Europe interfered, it was absolutely necessary to 
admit the evidence. 

They firmly believed the universe was entirely absorbed 
for ever by the spectacle of petty personal struggles and 
tribunal rivahy ; but, instead of abandoning om'selves any 
longer to such vile questions, it is abeady a progi'ess to turn 
towards something else. 

For, we must not believe that everything is false or vicious 
in the efforts of those who make war against us. After such 
things as the events of this century, the Eevolution and 
Napoleon, an overpowering weariness is always ready to 
seize upon the human soul, as soon as ever she is left unoc- 
cupied. God has accustomed her to fearfid shocks, and she 
can no longer pass under the yoke of petty thoughts ; having 
been enlarged by the education she has received from facts, 
she requires grand objects, even for amusement. Now, tell 
me, where is moral life to-day ? Who develops it ? Who 
attaches himself to it, or, rather, who is there that does not 

H 



146 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



work hard to extinguisli it ? One would think sucli is to-day 
the watch-word, which, descending from above, rules aU our 
society. 

Such a situation of things could not escape the intelligence 
of men who think they have the privilege of religious affairs : 
they saw the human soul abandoned, empty and defenceless ! 
And they said : 'Tis well ! Now is the time to seize her. 

A stronger reason than any I have hitherto shown was 
joined to the others. They had appeared to believe that, 
thanks to the every-day accumulated wonders of industry, 
and to the delights with which the earth is being adorned, 
the human soul, being seduced, would forget her immortality. 
Well, in spite of all this magic of the earth emiched by 
human art, this instinct of immortal life protests ; it rises, as 
if started from its slumber. Man seeks his bond, not only 
with humanity, but with the eternal city ; amid the prodigies 
of the age, he had forgotten that he must die ! He now 
remembers it, and seeks, in death, a living communion with 
every mind. Such is the serious feeling which forms the 
basis of the religious movement of om* time ; and let them 
say as they will, it makes nations uneasy. 

The lower orders themselves feel sure that you might cover 
them with silver and gold in vain ; something would stiU be 
wanting. Their souls are often greater than those of kings, 
and they know it ; it would not be sufficient for them to wear 
the crown here below ; they want moreover to reign in eter- 
nal life. 

"VYliat is the instinct of immortality, but a moral life, which, 
accumidated in the present, overflows in the fiitm-e ? 

Do not hope to deceive this sentiment by any political sa- 
tisfaction or social combination ; it bears in itself its own de- 
monstration ; it is the axiom of a superior science. Though 
it were stifled to-day, it woidd burst forth again to-moiTOw. 
Neither cunning nor habit constitute alone the strength of the 
Roman Church. Her power is that invincible cham of im- 
mortality, that ever-springing fountain of eternal religion. 



AND THE UNIVEESAL CHUECH. 



147 



Tlie Churcli seems to have preserved, all alone, amid the civil 
world, the ancient fonnula of calling the soul forth from the 
sepulchre. All the strength of the Ultramontane reaction is here. 

Many minds come over to this side, attracted by an un- 
quenchable thirst of hfe ; but those who, possessing this de- 
coy, transmit death alone instead of life, have received their 
name fi-om St. Paul ; he calls them stealers of men \ 

If philosophy, by being silent about these questions, thought 
that, in the meantime, the hiunan mind would forget them, 
she was mistaken, and her timidity has been of no use to her. 
Behold her now engaged by honom* to enter upon a neAv 
epoch, Avithout which, nations would soon be more advanced 
than the doctors. It is tme, this question is not resolved by 
books alone ; it is by an inward impulse that immortality is 
awakened. Will you not only believe it, but feel it ? Fill 
your mind with gTand overflowing thoughts and noble pro- 
jects, and you wiU have the anticipated conscience of future 
life ; you wiU possess it beforehand. On the contrary, give 
yom'self up to petty passions and narrow interests ; you will 
then hunt among all official demonstrations, and accept every 
catecliism in vain ; you may indeed promise yom'self immor- 
tahty mechanically with your hps ; but in that extenuated 
moral hfe which you have formed for yom'self, the present 
consciousness of future hfe will always fail you. What is the 
use pf eternity, when the soul, such as you have made it, 
does not even fill present time ? 

The worst would be to hope to overcome a religious phi- 
losophical and pohtical system, by combating cunning by 
cmuiing. Others wiU always be om- masters in that warfare. 
We can only gain the day by opposing to om- adversaries, 
whoever they may be, a more exalted idea, a more universal 
Christianity, a more equitable society, a more entire immor- 
tahty. It is not sufficient to deny questions, to make them 
disappear : that is the spirit of the past ; the question is to 
estabhsh an order superior to that wliich is opposed to lis : 
this is the spirit we beheve we see arising. 

H 2 



148 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



I have said that the Eoman Church disavows nationalities ; 
we must add, she distrusts them. Observe what is passing in 
Catholic Em-ope; you mil soon discover this considerable 
fact, that the Church is ever^-where treating the nations as 
suspected, that she is aspiiing to separate from them, and no 
longer to tmst to anything but Eome for support. We did 
not require eminent confessions to know that in Prance the 
French Chm-ch no longer exists but in name. 

Even in Spain, where the clergy were till then so deeply in- 
coi-porated in the nation, every voice which is audible repeats 
in its tm-n the same cry : Eome. The Bishop of the Canaries, 
in the work he has just published, places the new indepen- 
dency of the Spanish Chm'ch in absolute servitude with regard 
to Eome. This man, of real merit, incapable of assuming a 
mask of liberty, betrays the secret of the ecclesiastic coalition, 
when he pronounces a word which they take good care not 
to repeat here. " Nobody is ignorant," says he, " that the 
French Eevolution is an invention of hell." * GceiTcs, in 
Germany, in the name of the clergy of Bavaiia, becomes the 
echo of the Bishop of the Canaries. 

At the veiy moment I am speaking, one may say that all 
the Catholic clergies of Northern and Southern Em*ope are 
violently dispossessing those national characters which, in past 
times, had constituted their safeg-uard, and that they are con- 
centrating in Eome in order to combat in concert the spirit of 
each of their nations in particidar, and the spiritual unity of 
the nineteenth centmy in general. 

Tlus disorder does not date fi'om to-day ; in the two last 
renturies the pope had quarrelled with all the States of his 

• It is singular that in this anathema against the French Revolu- 
tion, the Bishop of the Canaries pretends to be countenanced by the 
sentiment of M. De Tocqueville, the author of Democracy in America : 
" Nadie ignora ya que la revolucion Francesa fue, como la llama el 
misnio autore, invencion de Satanas." Jvdepcvdencia constante de la 
Iglcsia Hispana, 1843, p. 355 ; Don Judas .Jose Romo, Obispo de 
Canarias. 



AND THE UNIVERSAL' CHUECH. 



149 



com Tn union. Is that the unity which they accused the Erench 
Eevohition of having destroyed? That unity was the very 
worst species of anarchy. 

The weakest princes have protected the spirit of modern 
society. Do they then sincerely hope that nations will to-day 
give up, by surprise, what kings knew how to defend yester- 
day ? Can they believe it ? 

The clergy do not see that by separating from nationalities, 
they are separating fr-om their principle of life. For, dm'ing 
two centm-ies, they have followed the people ; they no longer 
precede them. In the eighteenth centur}-, when society was 
sceptical, the clergy were also, together with the Cardinal 
Dubois. The world, after its gi*eat commotion, retm-ns to- 
wards God ; the clergy immediately follow ; and they try to 
communicate instantly to Eome that life which they have ex- 
haled in the hearts of nations ; so that it is society which re- 
stores Hfe to the Chm-ch, and no longer the Chm'ch to so- 
ciety. Eome resembles very Kttle what the ecclesiastical 
writers on this side of the mountains imagine ; if they suc- 
ceeded one day in being inspii-ed only mth the soul of the 
Vatican, they would be astonished to perceive how averse that 
inanimate soid is to any noise. There is a govenunent in the 
world personified by Sixtus V. ; to arrive at power, this man, 
of an ii'on constitution, exhausts liimself in feigning that he is 
dying ; he acts his djing agony for seven years, and seems to 
be expiring at every breath ; for, says he, they like dying men 
for popes : C/ie si fanno papa i morihondi. If the chm'ches 
were only one day, aU alone, without their people, face to face 
uTLth a power which establishes for itself a law of death, would 
they not regi'ct, before night, the sun and the fomitain of the 
living ? 

In this duel which they pretend to establish between the 
Chm-ch and nations, if Eome has not nationalities for her, has 
she at least humanity ? The dissenters ^vill miite, say you. 
But what sm-ety have I ? What ! without your making a 
single step, mtliout your rising any higher, the half of Chris- 



150 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



tendoni that has abandoned you, is about to alter its mind ; 
and, without any achievement on your side, you Avill accom- 
plish to-day, in your old age, what you found impossible in 
all the fervour of another age ! But where are the tokens of 
such an extraordinary tiling? WTiere are those dissenting 
nations which are timiing back ? I see them, on the contrary, 
marching head foremost towards the futm-e ; whence I con- 
clude that we must seek somewhere else than in you for the 
supreme reconciliation ; and all I can say is, that I fear lest, 
in this immutability, you remain insulated fi'om nationalities 
and from humanity altogether. 

In this situation of the w'orld, some writers in the North, 
particularly in Germany, could not help uttering a cry of joy, 
upon seeing what they call the decline of the nations of Ro- 
man extraction, absorbed in the decay of the Eoman Church. 
They went too fast, and this vultm*e-cry betrayed them. 
They hoped that this race of men was about to be crushed 
under the weight of Ultramontanism, and that their own was 
about to succeed to the inheritance. By that anti-Clmstian, 
anti-philosopliical joy, they have shown that, aU dejected as 
France may seem, her mission has not yet been boiTOwed by 
any body. No one among us ever rejoiced over the death of 
a people, and still less of a race of men. We have sympa- 
thized as much with dissenting Greece as with Catholic Ire- 
land; and the disappearance of a nation, if it were possible, 
would seem to us a calamity for om*selves. This is why the 
world knows that Prance, such as she is, can alone pronounce 
the social word, able to restore Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, 
Bohemia, and Hungary, all those fragments fallen from the 
crown of the popes. 

S('(> how ranch more faith we put in the spiiit than Rome ! 
Whilst she boasts to smwive every city, om' faith is that every 
Christian nation is immortal. Each of them may perhaps feel 
weak for a moment ; but they contain within themselves the prin- 
ciple which prevents them from decaying even in the sepidchre. 

It is true we do not believe that the way to save these na- 



AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. 



151 



tions is to oppress them with the stone of the ancient Church ; 
we believe that a new word of life, pronounced by a free na- 
tion, is alone able to break the seal of the tomb. For, if the 
Roman Church has been able to say she is the incorruptible 
body of Christ, we extend that to all humanity regenerated by 
the spirit ; and we do not admit that a single people, a living 
member of Christ, can remain eternally nailed upon the cross 
and the Golgotha of histor}^, without ever having their day of 
resurrection. 

What people had ever plunged more deeply into death 
than the Greek nation ? It was not only crucified, but sealed 
in the sepulchi-e ; another race of men, of a different religion, 
was watching, that the stone might not be rolled away. Eome 
no longer prayed for that defunct people ! they were aban- 
doned by him who ought eternally to pray for all. Travellers, 
and Byi'on himself, were all deceived ; they listened attentively, 
but heard no sound. 

But that law was to be observed, according to which we do 
not see in Christianity, as in Paganism, nations once over- 
thrown never rising again. Under those ashes, the spirit was 
living we know not where ! Eiga translates the Marseillaise ; 
the soul of new France silently circulates with this song from 
hiH to dale ; it extends and enlarges ; and (0 day eternally 
sacred for me !) I was permitted to arrive in 1829 with the 
French anny upon those shores of death, just in time to see 
the mii-acle accompKshed. Near a bloody cross. New Greece 
ai'ose out of the earth. My hands touched the hands of those 
who had saved a people ; my eyes saw, under the form of a 
nation, a Lazarus, who, after having laid in the sepulchre for 
three centuries, at the call of France came forth tottering from 
the Corhith and Athens of St. Paul ! 

Now, this resurrection was accomplished upon a schismatic 
people, in order that aU the world might see that Rome has 
lost the privilege of mnacles. Again the miracle was per- 
formed, not for Greece alone, but for the instruction and hope 
of all destroyed nations in whom a spark of life exists. Let 



152 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



them keep that spark ! The God of the modem does not need 
more to raise a world from the dead. 

In the decline of several Catholic States, we see, eveiy day, 
it is true, new tlieoiies broached to raise some one particular 
nation :* Ireland on one side, Italy on the other. Only one 
thing is wanting in these enterprises ; which is, to feel that 
these national miseries are bound for one another, that the re- 
medy of one can only rise from a power capable of curing 
them all. By what contradiction do the Catholic writers of 
Ireland and Italyf advise theii* nations to seek their own sal- 
vation separately and apart ? As if, by reducing themselves to 
private interest, they did not disann themselves by this excess 
of prudence ! As if it was not the very contraiy of the Catho- 
lic ideal ! It is certain that no one of them will enter upon 
tlie entire possession of herself, if she does not make of her 
own cause that of all her sisters in death, if tliis idea does not 
aggrandize her own enterprise in her eyes, and if she has not 
altogether on her side the power of nationality and the power 
of the miiverse. Ought not the trumpet of the angel, able to 
wake Ireland, to resound equally loud among aU the Catholic 
ruins, at Prague, Warsaw, Florence, Madrid, in Paraguay, and 
even as far as Eome, in the tomb of Adiian ? ShaU one mem- 
ber of that gi'eat universal body arise to life, and another re- 
main bm-ied ? The misfortune is, that the Chm-ch has let the 
nations of her communion grow strangers to one another ; 
she has sown scattered members, and no longer knows how to 
compose a body. Those nations divided in patches, awaking 
in the North and South, more dead than alive, hardly recog- 
nize one another ; the w^eakness of Home has kept them di- 
vided ; and the greatness of Prance w^ould be to re-unite them. 
In order to re-animate that cold city, of the dead, the first 
thing to l)e done is to provoke in them the sentiment of 

• The Neo-Catholic writers abroad are almost all declared enemies 
of France. 

t O'Connell has hitherto made of the Catholicism of Ireland only an 
insular question. See Bulbo's Esperances de I' lialie, p. 268. 



AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. 



153 



the new alliance ; for tlie dead buiy their dead ; they do not 
raise them from the tomb ! 

In no nation do I see the peril so flagrant as in Italy ; and 
if the words I am about to pronounce are not palatable, I wish 
them to be received as those of a man who has proved here a 
thousand times his affection for that country. How can we 
help being struck with astonishment in seeing Italian Pliilo- 
sophy now rimning into the snare of Ultramontanism ! Till 
now, it had, under aU sorts of forms, incessantly protested, 
even in spite of the poets, against the destruction of ci^dl so- 
ciety. If facts were overwhelming, at least the right was 
maintained. Italy had stiE one thing left ; the inward inde- 
pendence of the mind. Now, her writers consph-e to-day to 
take this last refuge from her. With the greatest honesty in 
the world, the Rosminis, Giobertis, Troyas, and Balbos, use 
all their talents to destroy, by reason, the empire of reason ; 
and by ovei-tlu'owing that intimate hberty of the human mind, 
they ai'e unwittingly giving their country her last death-blow. 

If they were but original and iimovators in this voluntary 
servitude, it would be still something 1 But no ! That sterde 
road has afready been travelled over ; and they repeat, tiU 
satiety, what has been alleged before them, by M. de Maistre 
at Saint Petersbm'g, M. de Bonald in the emigTation, Groerres 
at Munich, and by Gmither and Schlegel at Yienna. In the 
land of the bold achievements of intelligence, they arrange 
themselves in the rear of the past. The bm'den of Austrian 
ideas, without then* knovdng it, v/eighs them doTvm ; and they 
employ their strength in rivetting their chains, I fancy I see 
people whose right arm is shackled, and who tie down the 
other by an instinct of symmetry. To deliver herself fr'om her 
double yoke, Italy requii-es more tlian any other nation the ex- 
plosion of a new spiiit ; yet it is the very principle of thought 
that they enslave, persuading themselves that when the mind 
has entirely resigned into the hands of papacy, it will then 
justly have the electric strength to burst the stone of the 
sepulchre ! 

H 5 



154 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



illusion of weakness ! WiU no one arise in the great 
national tradition to utter a cry able to jnerce thi-ougli the 
rocky walls of the Alps, and prevent this deliberate suicide ! 

Philosopliy a prisoner ! A capti^aty within and without, 
in temporal and in spiritual things ! A double knot of 
the Empire and of Home ! What word must we pronounce, 
Italians, to make luminous to you in yoiu' own language 
what is clearer than daylight in om-s ? Know then, that if 
to the chains of the body you add, voluntarily and scientifi- 
cally, the shackles of the mind, there cannot henceforth exist 
among you even the shadow of a nation. 

1 \^'ill repeat my words, for it is worth while. You have 
two kinds of servitude to combat : hitherto you have 
endeavom-ed to turn them against each other ; it is high time 
to enter upon a new spii'it : without which you run the risk 
of being eternally dupes of one and the other. Now, there 
is nothing new, absolutely nothing, in yom* renouncing the 
principle of inquiiy and of life at the feet of papacy, unless 
it is that, by so doing, you give the lie to all yom* greatest 
men, and that, in pretending to rely upon tradition, you 
begin, on the contrary, by repudiating the tradition of your 
philosophers. You, who Avish to revive, and have so long 
represented the hiunan mind in the first rank, do not desert it 
now in its last combat ! 

Relying upon a chimerical alliance with Eome, they think 
all solutions easy, even at the risk of enervating hope itself. 
Italy thus em'iches herself with ingenious books in which they 
recompose, abnost without any effort, the map of the world. 
In those writings, the finit of excellent intentions, they pro- 
mise a nation to resuscitate it almost in an amicable manner, 
by the good will of the Chancelleries. To do so, they only 
require a little assistance on the side of the country ; and I 
tell you, on the contraiy, that you can only be regenerated by 
a moral prodig}'; and if the fii'st axiom of your poKtical 
science be not to shed, if needful, in noble combats for the 
world, not a few drops, but streams of yom' noble blood, it 



AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. 



155 



would be better never to bope or attempt anytbing. Vv^as it 
by the combmation of Imperial or Papal Chancelleries that 
Nortb America, Spain in 1812, and Grreece in 1827, reco- 
vered tbeir bberty ? Tbe world has not changed ; those who 
make yon bebeve that it is easy to revive without a 
nuracle of heroism, are mistaken. Do not forget that your 
Machiavel himself vaunts the fox only on condition that the 
lion accompany him. Neither heaven nor earth can save you, 
if you do not redeem yom-selves, iu the futm-e, by a baptism 
of fire ; trust not to words ! This wound wants the sword. 
Bisogna il ferro ! 

Let us condense iu one word all the genius of the French 
Revolution, and endeavour to seek iu what it is disting-nished 
fi'om aU preceding ones. Do you think it is only the over- 
throw of the nobility ? Others had succeeded in that before. 
Of absolute power? England had already destroyed it. 
The enfranchisement of the Commons, the accession of the 
people ? That also had been seen before. What then is new 
in that revolution ? This : for the first time in the ancient 
or modem world, a nation frees herself from the bonds and 
limits of her Chm-ch. She rises above every barrier, all the 
differences and limits of her private worship ; and she 
ascends dh-ectly to the som-ce of the law of bfe. She enters 
into communication with the God of all the Chm*ches ; and 
ill this situation, which commands every clergy of the earth, 
she does what nobody had ever done before her ; she em- 
braces a new mankind in a universal communion. That is 
what fii'st called forth a cry of joy from the earth. A nation \ 
becomes, for fifty years, the instrument of the universal 
Spirit, as aU the others had been, before her, the insti-nments 
of a sect, a particular Chiu-ch ! That is what had never yet 
been seen. 

That is the sense in wliich it is true to say that this 
revolution, which knows no limits, will march round the 
globe. 

Tliis is the fomidation of the French llevolutiou in its 



156 



TUE ROMAN CHURCH 



grandem-; and tliis the thought which connects its moat 
difl'erent periods ! Confine yourselves to any secondary aim, 
and you will lose the thread of this history: Constituent 
Assembly, Convention, Dii'ectory, and Empii'e, are so many 
phases contradicting each other; they appear a complete 
chaos. On the contrary, follow tliis supreme idea of reli- 
gious universality ; then everything is clear. Its progress is 
never inteiTupted ; and these fifty years of apparent contra- 
dictions form an imincible unity. 

After this nation has communed du'ectly with the uni- 
versal Spirit, they propose to her, now, as her last dismis- 
sion, to leave aside those vast thouglits, that summit, that 
Sinai upon which she was led by Providence, and where she 
conversed with God himself, face to face, amid the thunder 
and lightning of a trembling miiverse ! They now engage 
her to creep crest-fallen into the fold, that is, into a spirit of 
sect which, far fi'om widening, grows ever more narrow ! 

I will suppose France to consent ! I admit that that 
overflowing genius is pent up, and that France, repenting 
her too gi-eat gloiy, is going, like Charles the Fifth, to ce- 
lebrate alive her funeral in a corner of the Vatican. This 
abdication would not be of the slightest use to the Spirit of 
the past. 

A position superior to the Homan Chm'ch has once been 
taken ; that position ^vill never again be abandoned. The 
day France would leave it, Russia, Germany, England, 
everybody, w^oidd wish to sit in her place. Since they 
know well that that is the throne of the Chm*ch of the 
future. 

Thus, they propose to om- country an absolute sacrifice, 
useless to those who ask, and fatal to those who accom- 
plish it : a real sacrifice of Abraham ; for the hand of 
God is in the cloud to hold back the knife, if perad- 
venture France knecUng, with down-cast eyes, consented to 
receive the blow. 

I must add one word more. In tlie ideal of the Christian 



AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. 



157 



Church, everything was done by the people: priests, dea- 
cons, and bishops, arose from election, and as if from the 
public conscience. Nothing now is done in the Chui-ch by 
the people ; they no longer inteiTogate in them the voice of 
God. This is what authorises me to say, that the spiiit of 
new institutions, by replacing eveiything upon this grand 
basis of public conscience and the sovereignty of the people, 
is, unquestionably, in its principle, nearer the Cln'istian ideal 
than the organization and the institution of the Chui'ch are in 
these days. 

To conclude. They have tried in different ways to adul- 
terate that tradition of hfe in which all om- strength con- 
sists ; I felt convinced that a real danger threatened us, and 
that great accomplices were in it. Since that day, I have 
fought what, in my soid and conscience, I behe^^e to be the 
good fight. My adversaries know me very ill, if they believe 
that any private feeling of bitterness has been mingled by 
me in this struggle. Thank God, I feel no hatred against 
anybody in the world, and the subjects were so great that 
if I have been attacked by any coi-poration whatever, I de- 
dai'e I have not felt it. Besides, I owe my opponents the 
justice to say, that if they have listened to me, they have no 
longer thought of inteiTupting me ; they have understood 
that by introducing violence here, they were, by bel\dng 
themselves, rushing into their own ruin ; and, for om* part, 
in order to defeat them, we thought there was no necessity 
to hate them. 

In fact, I have never seen any real danger in flagrant 
hostilities. Something has always appeared to me more dan- 
gerous than avowed Jesuitism or Ultramontanism ; it is the 
spirit which precedes it, and by which the world was al- 
lowing itself to be caught : to make of religion, no longer a 
fanaticism, but an eternal fashion, to caress altogether the 
Church and pliilosophy, liberty and slavery, to exchange all 
sorts of masks, to make supreme convenance consist in slu'oud- 
ing oneself in ambiguous words, to amuse public opinion 



15S 



THE ROMAN CHURCH 



by feigiied quarrels, to feast upon a vain change of persons, 
as upon a reality, and to whisper and think in secret, — 
that was the danger ! Amid that prostration of the facul- 
culties, reason and common sense are suddenly aroused. 
Everything resumes its place. The movement of the hu- 
man mind was denied; — it is obliged to make a step to 
prove it. 

To speak truly, it would have been difficult, if not im- 
possible, for me to anive at the end of the journey I had un- 
dertaken, if you had not lent me the support of yom* united 
connctions. Accordingly, what I have done is due as much 
to you as to me ; or, rather, it is the fruit of that general con- 
science which has sho^^^l itself here, bm'sting forth with an 
enthusiasm which still astonishes me. Who produced it? 
Who developed it ? "V^Tio has breathed this inexplicable life 
into this audience ? Not I ! I have been only the organ of 
that thought, which, without yom- knomng how, was quiver- 
ing upon all yom- lips. 

And you seek, you invoke a better futm-e ! But it is 
evident, by these tokens, that this futm-e is abeady in you. 
I have brought nothing here ; I have but shown you the life 
concealed in the bottom of your own hearts. What! in 
return for my weak words, so much enthusiasm, so much 
moral electricity ! Ah ! what would you then have done if I 
had been all I ought to have been ? 

I ask myself what I must think of all I have seen and felt 
here for some months past; I think that the spiiit of the 
future is animating om* country in our new generation, as in 
the purest fountain of life. 

What has passed here between us is a strong tie. It is an 
engagement on your side as well as on mine. I am bound by 
my words, and you by yom- assent. I know well that they 
were not theatrical applauses which have resounded so often 
in tliis Iniilding ; they were addi-essed, not to a man, but to 
the belief which is conmion between me and you. The word 
wliich explodes in souls is a principle of the futm-e ; it must 



AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. 



159 



be realized ; tliat is, we must confonn oiu* lives to it ; and you 
must be prepared to put it into practice wben, in your turn, 
it will be given to you to bave an influence upon public 
affairs. 

Wlien I speak tbus, do not bebeve tbat I wisb to confine 
you to the letter of my instmction ! I bave been of use, per- 
haps, to show you, in a few fleeting moments, what you pos- 
sess within yourselves. I have infomed you of your own 
inward riches, of which perhaps you were ig-norant. It is that 
flash of faith in the mind, that moment of moral dignity which 
you must, without me, far from me, strive to make immortal. 
I am but a step in that ladder of hght which you must ascend 
even to God. To-mon-ow, or some day after, the step may dis- 
appear. "\Yhat matter ? I have shown the way ! Go beyond 
me, and ascend still higher ! 

In this assembly, consecrated to the genius of foreign 
nations, there are natm-aUy men of different or hostile races. 
Often have I seen here, side by side, Poles, Eussians, Italians, 
GeiTuans, Hungaiians, Spaniards, Portuguese, and even Blacks. 
It is a difficult thing, in such a meeting, not to wound the 
nationality of anybody. I have always desii'ed it ; I have 
used my best endeavom*s, and I think I have succeeded. If 
so, may this momentary meeting of different nations, languages, 
and sentiments, be for us the emblem of the futm-e union, 
.alliance, regeneration, and prosperity of their native lands, in 
a new spii-it of justice and a new bond of friendship ! 

You "vvill again see, perhaps soon, those long mshed-for 
countries. They mW. ask you what Prance is doing : you wall 
say she is offering up prayers for the world ! 

You will say she must not be judged by appearances, by 
what makes the most noise ; and that her heart, in reality, 
beats as powerfidly as ever. You will say that you have seen 
the sons of the men who, at other times, had so weU drawn 
the sword, and that they are striWng, not only not to be 
degenerate, but to remain the foremost in the Christian zeal 
of humanity, in political and social charity, and in the mission 



IGO 



THE ROMAN CHURCH, ETC. 



of futurity which thoy think God has given to theii* nation and 
has never \nthdi*awn. 

Spirit of grandcui' and strength, Spirit of the future, thou 
wlio all not enth-ely confined in Rome, but who livest glowing 
at this moment in the heart of eveiy generation of men, over- 
flowing even now, like a river after autumnal showers, every 
known form, every particidar Clim-ch, eveiy new and old 
symbol, without being the exclusive possession of any body or 
any clergy, who shinest forth among the laity as much, at 
least, as in the ecclesiastical world, wishing the Chm-ch to be 
not only a chosen tribe, but all himianity, do but teach us, at 
last, no longer to hate one another ! 

And now, we must separate, in body alone, never in mind. 
At this moment, which, I do not disguise it, fills me with 
emotion, I must request one favoiu* of you. Promise me that 
you will never, in this building or anj^vhere about here, cause, 
accept or listen to any kind of discussion. Om* thoughts are 
too serious not to gain much by being kept to om'selves ; my 
adversaries would be too happy to lay hold of anything that 
might later be misinterpreted. Tliey have, to oppose me, 
other Chairs, where other maxims are freely taught, besides the 
Press, and both the Chambers, where I have been and may be 
again denounced ; that ought to suffice them. On my side, I 
luive the approbation of yom* consciences in my favour ; and 
if I may add moreover the esteem of my countiy, I ask for 
nothing more in this world. 



APPENDIX. 



I. 

[The point of vietv indicated at the end of the First Lecture 
has been developed in a few pages, of which we give here 
the new edition.'] 

m ANSWER TO SOME OBSERVATIONS OF THE 
ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 

August, 1843. 

An unforeseen interference obliges ns to defend ourselves. 
In treating a question very different to tliat wlucli has occu- 
pied our attention, the Archbishop of Paris has considered it 
his duty towards his diocese, to protest against oui* Lectures 
and the work* which resumes them. This writing of the 
Archbishop's,! which, in the commencement, breathes the 
spirit of conciliation and mildness, changes its tone when the 
subject reaches us. Vehemence takes the place of unction. 
He had begun with the intention of attacking nobody, but he 
ends in waging a declared warfare against us ; so true it is 
that controversy often hurries even the wisest away in a 
dii-ection contrary to that which he had intended. This 

* ^' The Jesuits." — [A translation of which will soon appear. — C.C.] 

+ Observations upon the controversy occasioned by the debate of the 
liberty of instruction, by the Archbishop of Paris. 



162 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



would be our excuse, if (whicli God forbid) we did not suc- 
ceed in showing, in all we have to say, our respect for the 
person, together Avith our respect for truth. 

Instead of complaining of this illustrious intervention, we 
believe it to be useful. Not only the discussion is enlarged, 
it also becomes clearer. At the moment om* adversaries were 
accusing us of pm'suing a phantom of Jesuitism, the first 
prelate of France, nobly disgusted with so many subterfuges, 
tlu-ows aside those vain masks, and openly acknowledges the 
concert between Jesuitism and the Episcopacy. The disciples 
of Loyola were, it Avas said, an invention of our fancy ; we had 
invented them for the pleasm-e of dispute. Nobody di'eamed 
of them, or cared about them ; yet, amid these useless artifices, 
here is a man, more sincere than all the others, the first mem- 
ber of om- clergy, who decides upon giving this supreme 
confession of sympathy and alliance : 

" You attack,"* says this prelate, " the clergy under the name 
of a society unacknowledged by the laws'" — Is this a good way 
to defend them, identifying them Avith Avhat the law reproves ? — 
" TVe do not pretend to settle here the process of this celebrated 
society in which so many passions have been brought to play.'' — 
This process has been settled thirty-nine times, and always 
with the same result ! — '"Even if the Jesuits icere wrong (three 
centmies ago, the Bishop of Paris accused them of prostituting 
the Church !) you are not privileged to be just and logicians." — 
The question is precisely, indeed, to show in what we are 
neither just nor logicians. — " You accuse the rules of that 
religious order of establishing a humiliating despotism." — In 
what is despotism founded upon delation an honom'able 
thing ? — " You know well that they cannot impose their yoke 
upon any toho are not disposed to accept it." — I know too that 
tlie art of surprising the AviU forms a part of theii* religion. — 
" You know well that, notwithstanding certain metaphors em- 
ployed in dra^oing up their regulations, (Loyola was not a 
rhetorician, his metaphors are precepts,) their discipline does 
* Observatiotis, p. 78. 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



163 



mt impose so absolute a passive obedience as the military disci- 
pline.^' — In what military regulation liave we ever heard of 
such a rule as the following : " K the authority declares that 
what is white is black, affii'm that it is black."* — " Tou tcill not 
wcmse of usurpation those who possess all the establishments of 
public instruction^ — No corporation possesses all those 
establishments. — " You are indignant with these invaders^ 
who have no school, no title, no salary''' — I am indignant 
with cunning counterfeiting sanctity. — " You pretend that 
they overawe the bishops'" — I would much rather believe 
that they overawe them than think they conciliate them. — 
" And it is in their power to dismiss them.'' — ^Why do they not 
do so ? Chiistianity Avould be the better for it. — " Wliich they 
would not fail to do, if they were as perverse a^ you say." — ^We 
say that the maxims of that body are perverse ; we have proved 
it ; and we are waiting to be refuted. 

So then we are not permitted to separate the cause of the 
Trench clergy fi'om that of Jesuitism. They are wiUiiig, at 
every lisk, to take upon themselves the responsibility of that 
so often accursed society. Whatever we bring against it the 
clergy apply to themselves : so much unpopularity, such 
patent iniquity, and so monstrous an inheritance, do not 
frighten them. If we persist in making a difference between 
things which were tiU now a whole world asunder, this 
distinction is set down to our account as impiety. Is that 
indeed the final answer of the Church of France ? Have 
they weighed all the consequences of that word which may 
even now be retracted ? To identify the Chm'ch of France 
with Jesuitism, sounds so strange to French ears, that we 
want to hear it repeated once more : 

" You testify lively sympathy for the lower order of clergy ; 
is it then by blaspheming against their faith We have 
undertaken the defence of the Spirit against those who wdsh 
to cheat the Spiiit. We have condemned modern Phariseeism 



♦ One of Loyola's rules. 



164 



TO THE AUCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



mostly by making use of the terms of ecclesiastical authority. 
We have preferred the Gospel to the Spiiitual exercises of 
Saint Ignatius Loyola, that is true. We may have been 
exi'oneous, though nobody has yet pointed out any eiTor of 
fact. We have separated, by a gidf, the Christianity of Jesus 
Clu'ist from the Chi'istianity of Loyola. In aU this, where is 
the blasphemy ? And what then are the expressions avoided, 
if these are the terTnsfidl of moderation and benevolence wliich 
we were promised in the commencement ? 

To refute what I have said about the oppression of the 
lower clergy, it is objected that feio priests are disposed to 
complain. There is good reason to keep silence, when com- 
plaint is imputed by you to revolt. "VVTiy am I not permitted 
to quote to your Grace the heart-rending language which 
certain priests secretly address to us, making us the con- 
fidants of theii' oppression, and entreating us not to dividge 
tlieir names ! The best proof of their desperate servitude is 
their having recom-se to us. What can we do for them, 
unless it be to complete their ruin ? If their cause, every- 
where else, had but a chance of being listened to, it is diffi- 
cult for me to conceive that any one of them would choose us 
for theii' advocates. 

The consequences deduced from the abolition of the reli- 
gion of the state* are those which were to provoke the most 
strenuous contradiction. " You make" this is the answer, 
** the legislator absurd in order to make Mm adverse to tts.'* 
They perceive that aU the question is in this. 

It results from the developments! into which his Lordship 
enters upon this subject, that allowing no religious life to our 
civil and political institutions, he belongs to the opinion of 
those who declare the law atheistical. According to this 
idea, the institutions reposing entirely but upon themselves, 
it is, indeed, to make the legislator absm'd to seek in the 
laws any necessaiy relation with belief. 



♦ The Jesuits, p. 126. 



f Observations, p. 41, 48, 80. 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF PAEIS. 



165 



For our part, on tlie contraiy, we maintain tlie impos- 
sibility of conceiving a body of institution, a code, or a legis- 
lation, without supposing a religious basis. Tlie spirit wMch. 
supports tlie unity of oui' Frencli institutions is tlie spiiit of 
Chiistianity wbicli they are tending to realize. By forming 
with all the scattered Chui'ches one single city, the State is, 
in om' opinion,* more in conformity with the idea of the 
universal Chm*ch than those who think to keep apart in a 
sectarian spuit ; and it will be confessed, by the bye, that it 
is at least sm-prising, in this debate, that it should be we 
who affirm that no ci^ol establishment can live without Grod, 
and Ms Grace the Ai'chbishop who maintains the contrary- 
Let us apply these principles to the chief subject of the 
controversy, the problem of education ; they vnR stand forth 
in manifest evidence. In what, indeed, does the system they 
oppose to us end in practice ? You see. If the State is 
atheistical, it results that it is totally wdthout the power of 
gi\ing a rule of conduct, or estabhshing any principle of 
education ; hence the necessity of forming as many separate 
systems of instruction, schools, and educations, as there are 
creeds in France. This is, in fact, the consequence at which 
they stop. Catholic schools, Lutheran schools, Calvinistical 
schools, and Philosophical schools, without any connecting 
tie between them ; such is, in the eyes of the Archbishop, 
the ideal of the pubhc constitution of education.* Each 
would relish apart his separate doctrine, without any fear of 
mutual contact. They woidd form, side by side, so many 
insulated nations which, being brought up in the reciprocal 
hatred of one another, would have notliing in common but 
their name. Either words have changed their signification, 
or all this is notliing else but to bring back society to a 
division, to a civil and pohtical distribution, that is to say, 
to schism. 

Imprison minds in the loneliness to which the system of 
* Observations, p. 54. 



166 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF PAEIS. 



the Archbishop would tend to lead them, and, after half a 
century, what result would you find? ]\Iinds nourished in 
traditions which they believe iiTeconcileable, ardent secta- 
rians, Avhom no common point "vvill rally, a new leaven of 
civil and religious warfare, a fuiious never-ending combat 
between priests and philosophers, a society systematically 
divided and parcelled out, generations pent up from their 
cradles in prejudices and mutual hate ; what more ? Fanatics 
and sceptics. Amid aU that, what becomes of Trance, the 
country of unity, the work of ages and Providence ? As far 
as in you lay, you wiU have divided her. You wiU have done 
the contraiy of what Providence does ! WiU you be more 
Christian on that account ? 

All the principle of public education reposes upon the 
necessity that the new generations, after having received the 
tendencies, the inspii'ations of the domestic hearth, the lessons 
of particular creeds, should meet one moment to be connected 
in one same spirit. Thereby, preserving their native aflFec- 
tions, they learn to feel they have issued from the same 
comitry, and are members of the same family ; yet, it is this 
principle of alliance which gives you umbrage, and that you 
stiive to ruin as much as you can ! 

But the more you attack it in the name of the Chui'ch, the 
more you point out the necessity of saving it in the name of 
the State. Either the University is notliing (and in that 
case it would be good to deprive it even of its name), or it 
ought to represent, in its doctrines, that moral unity of 
Prench society and that principle of alliance which you pro- 
secute in its bud. Let it dare to take its stand upon this 
ground. No sect wiU ever be able to ruin it, since none 
could ever succeed it. The State has in itself a reUgious Hfe, 
without which it woidd not subsist one day. But, it is true, 
this life has no longer CathoUc authority for its only rule ; 
since society, in becoming greater, has estabUshed itself no 
longer upon a fraction of the Chiu'ch, but upon the whole of 
Cluistianity. And when, in asserting this fact, which sums 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



167 



up tlie spirit of modern times, I call upon spiritual autho- 
rity not to let itself be outstepped by temporal power, in the 
work of alliance and universal society, you see in these words 
only impiety ! Then you add : " How can we believe in 
your love for rehgion,* when you disguise badly enough your 
confidence, in an audacious exegesis which shakes the base of 
Christianity only by overthrowing the foundations of every 
historical certainty?" We have stated the questions which 
have been raised by modern criticism.f Instead of making 
a vain discussion, we have shown sincerely the difficulties 
ci'eated by Science in our days. Is our inviting theologians 
to seize the difficulties where they are, to give a proof of true 
atheism ? Let them resolve them, it is aU we desire. In 
the meantime, we are sm-prised that the clergy of Ei-ance have, 
in no kind of work, tried to attack the objections proposed 
with so much lucidity and frankness by the exegesis which it 
is very easy to call the naturalism of the German Universities. % 
Once, however, there was a reply to the work of Strauss, 
which, resuming with unheard-of boldness aU the forms of 
scepticism, sapped the root of Christianity. And who was 
it that made that answer ? Was it one of the French clergy ? 
Was it one of those prelates to whom the least schism gives 
offence ? Was it at least one of the order of Jesus, whose 
task it was by pri^dlege ? No, it was that man whom your 
Grace to-day is pleased to term a blasphemer. 

I asked how it was that the nations that had adopted the 
banner of Ultramontane pohcy are to-day either abandoned 
or chastised by Providence, The answer that is flung back 
like an accusation confiims the objection : " Who told you 
that those sad dissensions do not proceed from the temerity and 
profomid ig-norance of the Refoi-mers who partake of your doc- 
trines ?" It remains to be seen where are the rash Reformers 
of Italy, Spain, and South America. These nations are those 

* Observations, p. 80. f The Jestdts, p. 289. 

X The Life of Jesus, by Dr. Strauss. See Germamj mid Italy, 
vol. ii. 



168 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



among whicli reforms have found tlie least credit ; they ought, 
ttccordinglv, to be less torn by dissensions, and less abandoned 
than the others. But the contrary is the case, since the na- 
tions among whom changes have been most radical, namely, 
France, England, Germany, Eussia, and the United States, 
ai-e unquestionably far superior in power, authority and pros- 
perity to the former : whence it follows, that all that his 
Grace advances here, falls back against him. For, in any 
aise, if the South is declining on account of rash reforms, 
how is it the North prospers by still more rash reforms ? 
Can he who sins the most, prosper, whilst he fails who sins 
the least ? 

His Grace feels that this fu'st reason is ordy good against 
himself; without insisting upon it, he falls back upon an- 
other : " Fou toould find it,'' says he, "in the icicked disposition 
of human nature, if you were not blind enough to deify it'' 
Even if we did deify wicked dispositions (though it ^\dU be 
necessary to revert to this subject), the argument would gain 
nothing by it. Human natm-e has not a bad inclination only 
in Ultramontane districts. I do not even think his Grace 
means that it is more T\dcked there than elsewhere. AMien 
therefore I pretend that a strictly Catholic pohcy has a power- 
ful argmnent against it, dl'a^vn from the inferiority of the 
States wliich have followed it, it is no answer to produce 
against us the original vice of human natm-e. Eor this vice 
being the same everywhere, I ask how it can explain the de- 
cay of some and the prosperity of others. 

After these answers, each of which is turned as an accusa- 
tion against us, his Grace makes an appeal to the love of 
peace. We subscribe to it with all om- heart : 

" You love peace, we are assured of it ; you groaned in 
introducing a struggle calcidated to awake the passions." 

Would to God that these expressions of peace had not re- 
sounded so late! Doubtless they would have sufficed to 
stop the violence employed against us, for his Grace knows 
that neither calumny nor insult have ever provoked one word 



TO THE AECHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



169 



in defence. We have patiently waited till the right of liberty 
of discussion has been violated in om* persons, tiE . insult, 
open menaces and sacred mutiny have come to provoke us 
with a lofty air, and till our voice has been di'owned for 
hom-s together, by the cries of those who to-day say they are 
the only friends of libei-ty of discussion. In retaliation, what 
have we done ? This alone : we have followed the usual 
course of om- Lectm-es ; we have related and analysed the ori- 
gin of an order whose history we were unable to avoid. We 
have examined it, as we should have done if nothing unusual 
had happened. To relate history, to say nothing but what is 
conformable to our records, is that vengeance, as you say it 
is, my Lord ? In this case, it is the vengeance of God, not 
of man. 

How desnable it would have been that the evangelical 
words of his Grace the Ai-chbishop of Paris had then diffused 
peace in the minds of the blind, who, in order to claim the 
independence of Jesuitism, tried at &st to stifle om-s. A 
single word from his mouth would doubtless have confined 
that bhnd zeal to its necessary limits ; and we should not 
have seen (by a contradiction which now makes us excuse a 
little distrust) the most complete partisans of the Hberty of 
instruction begin by attempting to quash instruction itself. 

" You ought," continues his Grace, " to deplore yom* suc- 
gess, since the passions have been let loose. You ought to 
deplore it, because it does not confer solid gioiy ; you ought 
to deplore it, because it has never given real happiness." 

For men whose voice they T\4sh to di-own, success is to be 
able to speak. This being estabhshed, I do not see clearly 
why we must deplore our adversaries not having succeeded. 
Who would have gained by om* defeat ? Without contradic- 
tion, brutal force and violence, which, some other day, could 
just as weU be tm-ned against others. Alas ! my Lord, what 
a sad \'ictory you would have obtained ; and how well it is, I 
think, for your o\sti sake, that we did not allow, by a noto- 
rious precedent, the establishment of this right of violence 

I 



170 



TO THE AECHBISIIOP OF PAEIS. 



over tlie mind ! If a resistance to gross oppression does not 
give real happiness, it is not less our duty to repel it. As to 
the solid glory you mention, I do not see any better liow this 
word can be appKed here. In these school affaii's, there is 
generally hardly any question of gloiy ; all we can effect is 
to merit obscai'ely the esteem of a few men, and perhaps, my 
Lord, in secret even yours ! 

Amid the gi'eatest questions, why was it necessary that 
the fost Archbishop in Prance should mite the following 
words ? How could the sacred crosier rake from the dust 
such an insinuation as this ? — 

" We mention, without vouching for its truth, another 
motive of opposition; can it be true that the Evangelical 
Chair has excited sad jealousy, when its success sm-passes 
that of certain other Chaii's, surrounded by less numerous 
and less eager auditors ? " 

And this is said cabnly, straight forward, and without 
scruple ! After a slight hesitation, the sentence is confirmed 
■svith full authority by this austere reflection : " "WTio is there, 
even among the noble works of the intelligence, who has not 
to defend liimself against the susceptibiKty of his own self- 
love ?" Thus, the diocese of Paris is now solemnly warned. 
Some of the most religious persons had thought they could 
understand our proceeding by the necessity of defence, a rest- 
less cmiosity, or even by the mania of independence which 
torments modern man. The most resolute in blaming us 
thought they recognised the consequences of doctrines ac- 
cepted and followed out to the end. We had been accused of 
naturalism, eclecticism, pantheism, and atheism ; but the gene- 
ral reason of these doctrines still remained to be found ; it 
was necessary that the discussion should come to the hands 
of the Archbishop, for the theological principle of these errors 
to be discovered. It is to make this clear, that his Grace is 
decided to break a silence wliich, otherwise, the Catholics of 
the diocese of Paris wight consider as a prevarication ; and 
every thing having been considered, and the chapter interro- 



TO THE AECHBISHOP OF PAEIS. 



171 



gated, this principle is jealousy excited by tlie success of our 
preacliers ! If we abandoned om-selves to tlie naturalism of tlie 
G&rman Universities, if we resisted violence, it was mere 
envy ! If we did not tlincli before the subject which the na- 
tural course of time imposed upon us ; if, for all that, we 
confined oui'selves to the sixteenth centiuy, once more it was 
thi'ough mere envA^ for the literary success of Advent and Lent ! 
Eut theii- honoiu'able success does not date from yesterday, 
this winter, or this year ! It will be allowed that it is a mi- 
racle how m^en, capable of entertaining this paltry jealousy 
so long a time, should have waited tid now for an opportu- 
nity of disphnTng it. 

" If you believed yourselves calumniated, wJiicJi toe have not 
to examine here-,'' but, pray, where then wiH you examine it, 
my Lord, if you do not at the very moment when calumny is 
whispering about you, and gliding, unknown to you, from your 
pen ? Wh.en will you examine it, if you do not at the moment 
when your interposition must be for us, to use your own terms, 
a mrety of impartiality ? Is it then a thing of such slight 
importance to know whether men of whom you make yourself 
the judge have been calumniated or not ? And not satisfied 
with letting calumny subsist when it proceeds from others, — 
is yom' imputation of altering the truth by the effect of sad 
jealousy also a thing of so little consequence, coming fr'om the 
fiirst prelate of the kingdom, that it is not worth wlule exa- 
mining before being pubHshed to aU yom- diocese ? 

You promise us a calm and polite discussion ; you ought to 
give us nothing but the plaia truth ; but when you accuse us 
du-ectly of deifying the had inclinations of human nature, deign 
to consider that, by this solemn inculpation, the most serious 
certainly that can be brought against men, you give us the 
right to ask you upon what it is founded. To take advantage 
of public confidence and the liberty of speech to exalt bad 
inclinations and \Tle passions in still young hearts, would seem 
to me such infamy that nothing coidd be severe enough to 
chastise it. Tor here the question is no longer a diff'erence of 
I 2 



172 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



opinion about a dogma ; universal morality is at stake ; and 
the more serious your assertion is, the more it requii'es to be 
demonstrated. Before reading your words, I said to myself: 
If blind men provoke public hatred against us, it is impossible 
that the head of the flock should add his voice to theirs. His 
dignity and his well-known moderation, his desii'e of con- 
ciliation and his policy, eveiything opposes this. Even in 
involuntary ciTor, it is impossible for him not to recognize the 
sincerity, the love of tmth, the moral life, and the soul which 
support om* words. Yet, on the contrary, by one word, you 
attempt to blast cveiytliing, without any discernment between 
tratli and falsehood, and Avithout reflecting that an assertion 
from you is, in the opinion of many, equivalent to an esta- 
blished tnith. You do not deem it necessary to support an 
accusation, however monstrous it may be, by any fact, any 
proof, any even far-fetched induction which we might at least 
discuss ; to make the process of Jesuitism, suffices, according 
to you, to oiFend at once the human conscience and universal 
morahty. Till to-day, it was precisely the contrary that was 
considered as certain. 

No, my Lord, you cannot think that vile sentiments influ- 
enced our words. Those words were given in public ; thereby 
people will judge whether it is the good or the bad inclinations 
that we deify. There woidd be, I know well, an efficacious 
way to destroy, from its very foundation, the whole body of 
public instraction in France. To effect this, no new law 
would be needed ; it Avould be sufficient to reduce it to such 
a state of feebleness that every insult might be heaped upon 
it Avithout its daring ever to raise its head. Persuade the 
countiy that there is a body against which it is lawfid to 
attempt everything, without ever suffering from any indi- 
vidual any serious contradiction, and that body a\t11 fall to- 
nion-ow into pubhc contempt. Yfho would belong to it a 
day, if the first condition was silently to abandon one's honour 
should the adversary only be bold and the attack proceed 
from a high quai'ter ? Being accustomed to decide everything 



TO THE AECHBISHOP OF PAKIS. 



173 



without control, you see how difficult it is to be just. Our 
principal impiety, in your eyes, will always be not to allow 
ourselves to be cruslied with discussion. 

Many persons said to us : " Why do you separate the 
clergy jfrom Jesuitism? you may be sure they act in concert;" 
for all that, we persisted in distinguishing one from the other. 
Even now, in spite of the authority which confounds them, 
we still hesitate to see in this declaration the formal opinion 
of the whole Chm'ch of Prance. Cannot one voice be found 
among our forty thousand priests to protest against such a 
responsibihty ? Is there nobody, I repeat, among so many 
bishops, preachers, and different orders, who dares, not fur- 
tively, not in an anonymous letter, but frankly and openly, 
deny this compact with the sons of Loyola ? Will a fearful 
silence reign over this declaration which envelopes the Chiu'ch 
of France in a cause so many times judged and always con- 
demned ? We pause, and listen attentively. 

And why so much ardour in compromising yourselves for 
them ? WTio obliges you to undergo voluntai'ily that inherit- 
ance of malediction? Is it gi-atitude? Measm-e first the 
good and the evil they have done you. Necessity ? Where 
is it ? Fear ? That is to say you abandon yom-selves that 
you may have nothing more to fear ! Their promises ? Do 
.you think that they alone can save Catholicism? In this 
case, it is great news for the world to be thus under the ne- 
cessity of choosing between Voltaii-e and Loyola. If their 
promises attract you, wait at least tiU they have shown, by 
irrefutable proofs, their skiU in getting new times into their 
possession. "V\Tio hurries you ? The world gives you peace, 
which you promise without being able to keep it. What ! at 
the first injunction fi*om them, without examining whether their 
alliance be prejudicial or not, without then- having repaired 
the injury they have done you, mthout any safe pledge, and 
contrary to your own tradition, you identify yom'selves with 
them, and become absorbed in them ! Do you, I say, take 
refuge with them, whose name is sufficient to make palaces 



174 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



ci"umblc to pieces in a moment, till not one stone remains 
upon another ? If this be disinterestedness, it lacks that pru- 
dence which is requisite even in tilings di\dne ; if it be blind- 
ness, let us reckon, by that, what men might do, who, 
exercising this fascination, have moreover the ai't of per- 
suading that they have ceased to live. 

Besides, this intimate bond being once admitted, we must 
at least accept the first consequence ; it applies to those dif- 
ferent orders of Benedictines, Dominicans, Mendicant Friars, 
&c,, who are everywliere struggling to emerge into life again. 
As long as these institutions were reaUy distinct, there was 
reason in their existence. But, if it be averred that Jesuitism 
henceforth envelopes them in a more general spu'it in such a 
manner that it cannot be criticised "without aU orders being 
affected, why, once more, so many cloaks to cover the same 
personage ? Is it right to conceal the soul of the Jesuit under 
a Franciscan's garment ? A gathering of all the orders into 
one, ought to be the loyal consequence of the system upon 
which they have just entered; and the more especially 
so, as there is no form of life to which the institution of 
Loyola may not be extended. Truth is here the same thing 
;is unity. 

I confess that amid the parties now dividing France, it 
seemed to me that the Chm'ch had sometliing better to do 
than to rankle our smarting wounds with that fement of 
dispute which ever accompanies Jesuitism. In a chaos of 
opinions, it woidd have been grand to see the Chm-ch of 
France, alone, calm, pacific, and conciliatory, when aU was 
commotion about her. How was it she did not feel inclined 
to act the good Samaritan, by closing the wounds of France 
as she lay bleeding l)y the way-side ? She prefers to open 
them. I fancy, however, that such a spectacle of serenity and 
majesty, amid the clamom- of parties, would have affected 
men's minds more than any other sign. It would have been, 
at least, a mu-acle a himdred times more efficacious than aU 
those new miracles which they bring against us every day j 



TO THE AECHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



175 



to remain calm, in the civil tempest, is tmly the mark of the 
finger of God. 

On the contrary, they make it theii' task to introduce into 
the Church the feverish temper of daily politics. Agitation, 
irritation, paltry tricks of party spiiit, infect the holy city. 
If they obey the spirit of our time, it is not in whatever is 
great, but in everything that is little. They reject what 
composes really its religious life ; I mean, the spirit of con- 
ciliation, profound unity, and impartiality, founded upon an 
ever more distinct sentiment of a common alliance. What 
they bori'ow from their epoch, is its bare outside : a spirit of 
quan-eUing, controversy, judicial menaces, a Grospel of noise 
and tumult, A new hymn issuing from the heart would 
speak louder than all that. 

When they retire into the sanctuary, is it to draw nearer 
to God or to the world ? In the vaults of our Cathedrals, 
thousands of workmen are sldlfulLy mustered and drilled, in 
secret, beyond the Hght of day. What are these new Chris- 
tians about, thus bm^ied in the bosom of the catacombs ? In 
what depths of asceticism are they plunged ? What secret are 
they taught in the dust of the tombs ? Bmied in the holy 
of holies, a Jesuit draws a lottery, and makes a course of 
Amusing Physics ! 

" Nothing is so easy as to divide and destroy" These words, 
by which his Grace terminates, resume indeed aU the ques- 
tion. Who are they who unite, and who are they who 
divide ? This is certainly what we wish to know. 

That you should reproach us with uniting what Ultramon- 
tanism separates, I perfectly understand ; but it is difficult to 
conceive in what we divide, when, instead of bringing com- 
munions against each other, we seek, on the contrary, their 
points of resemblance and contact. Till now, we had been 
accused of re-uniting what wiH not be joined, and of bringing 
together what wishes to remain asunder; that was called 
Pantheism. To-day, your Grace accuses us of dividing. 
These two accusations cannot subsist together. You must 



176 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



make choice of one or the other, since they necessarily refute 
each other. 

Those who divide are they who wish that every sect and 
every Chiu'ch should be a separate world, shut for ever, with- 
out any contact of education -with whatever is most Hke it, 
that new generations should nowhere meet in one common 
symbol, that men should pass from the cradle to the tomb, 
side by side, without either touching or knowing one another, 
and that there should be in France many Erances in-econcile- 
able with each other, one of which should learn eternally to 
cast her interdict upon all the others. 

Those who unite and edify are they who, respecting pai- 
ticular chm'ches, believe that they are contained in a more 
comprehensive church, which is Christianity ; that, conse- 
quently, far from sequestrating systematically every belief, 
and so, envenoming and often exaggerating the points of 
strife, it is good to reconcile, at least for a moment, in one 
common symbol of education, minds that are destined to 
form one and the same society. By bringing kindi*ed forms 
of worship towards a reconciliation, they unite ; and they 
edify in tending, by a continued movement of the Christian 
soul, towards the association of spirits in the promised city. 
It is evident that the State which places itself at this point of 
view in its constitution, is nearer the Universal Chm^ch than 
Ultramontanism can be, never speaking of anything but 
sequestration, separation, and loneliness. 

You ask, my Lord, what is the moral mission which the 
State, supposing it to be weU constituted, can accomplish in 
education : you answer yourself when you assert, what is 
indeed a very serious matter, that every sect, eveiy religion, 
possesses a moral instruction which forms a very different 
body of doctrines* I ask, in my tm'n, who is to show the 
connecting tie of these particidar moralities? Who is to 
decide? Doubtless it cannot be any sect. Will you then 



* Observations, ■^A\. 



TO THE AECHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



177 



form in society as many different societies as there are sepa- 
rate communions ? This is the necessary consequence, if we 
insist upon yom- words. Under these different instructions, 
there is a social morality upon which new life reposes. In 
the present situation of things, every sect and every church 
having a distinct instruction, there evidently follows a neces- 
sity for a public education, which, by connecting private 
education, may ultimately unite and co-ordinate the different 
doctrines in the general conscience. The decisive argument 
for the intervention of the State in matters of education will 
always be drawn from the principle that you have just put 
forwai'd to combat it. 

For, it is not sufficient to tolerate one another ; we must 
also be reciprocally upon a good understanding. Now, who 
win teach the Catholic to love the Protestant ? Is it he who 
inculcates the horror of the Protestant dogma ? Candidly, 
can you develop in others the intimate sentiment of the 
rights and dignity of the Israelite, you who, in the kingdom 
which you sway, have just proscribed every amicable relation 
between the Jew and the Christian ? Can you profess respect 
for those you anathematize ? Can you develop the sentiment 
of rehgious fellowship which is the soul of the society in 
which we live ? You are so little capable of doing so, that 
this entnely new principle of social Hfe is not perceptible to 
you, since you do not even put to yourselves the question 
that is derived from it. It is enough for you to maintain 
communions profoundly asunder. The idea of estabhshing 
a relation between them seems never once to have engaged 
yom' thoughts ; and yet, that is the whole difficulty of the 
problem. Acknowledge then that by remaining in the limits 
in which you imprison yourselves, a whole part of modern 
humanity escapes you. 

Among modes of worship henceforth equal, it is necessary 
there shoidd be a spiritual inteiTcntion to make peace between 
those whom everything provokes to war ; and as sects and 
separate churches confess their inability to effect reconciliation. 



178 



TO THE AECHBISHOP OF PARIS. 



we come back in eveiy way to this consequence, — that we 
must seek elsewhere the instruction of that social morality 
\vithout which there are henceforth Catholics, Dissenters, 
Philosophers, that is to say, parties, but no France. 

Moreover, do not believe easily that they whom you choose 
for adversaries are moved only by petty thoughts ; they firmly 
believe the problem of new society to be wholly engaged in 
the questions you provoke : that is aU. If you find so many 
obstacles as soon as ever you msh, under one form or another, 
to put an obstacle to the reconciliation of souls, it is because, 
on the one hand, you are meddling with aU that has been 
summed up by the progress of ages, and, on the other, you 
appear to be making a work rather of schism th,^n religion. For 
what is caUed tolerance consists, not only in an indifference 
for forms of worship, but, much rather, in a profoimd feeling 
of the identity of the Chiistian Spirit in the modem world. 
The members of the dispersed family of Chiist, of the Old as 
weU as the New Testament, are di'amng nearer, and begin- 
ning to know and understand one another, from one end of 
the miiverse to the other. Fi'ance has entered fm.-ther than 
any nation upon this road of reconciliation. She precedes 
them all in the alliance. This is her genius, her mission, her 
star, and her law wiitten in codes and in souls. When the 
great flock attempts to crowd together after the tempest, the 
bishop's crook will not prevent the unity which the cross has 
promised ! 

Without speaking of scepticism, the Chm-ch is menaced 
to-day by two sorts of dangers. First, she may disacknow- 
ledge whatever religious deeds are done apart from her, and, 
by so doing, by allowing herself to be outdone in her own 
way, may leave to the laity the care of accomplishing, be- 
fore her eyes, the work she abandons. Suppose the Temporal 
invites to the union of minds, and the Spii'itual to discord ;* 

* They began by asking for Offices of Catholic charity, of Catholic 
municipalities, &c. ; people answered them, (which was consistent,) by 
asking for Protestant regiments, and Protestant crews in the navy. In 
such sectarian rivalry, where can we stop ? 



TO THE ARCHBISHOP OP PAEIS. 



179 



tell me, on whicli side will tke Gospel be ? It miglit happen 
that the moment when Christianity is becoming incarnate in 
the institutions, the clergy might be waging silent war against 
these same institutions, and thus the Chm^ch would ultimately 
be dashed to pieces in the dai'k against the living Christ 
standing upon the basis of the laws ! 

In the second place, there is danger in the intoxication 
of victory, even though it be a holy one. Tor if, in the 
political order, the infatuation of a government is perilous, 
what must be said of the infatuation of a mode of worship ? 
Civil authority has been known to turn dizzy ; in that case it 
is deposed ; one family takes the place of another, and every- 
thing remains fast. But if, by chance, a rehgion, long ab- 
solute, after having lost its sovereignty, thinks of recovering 
it, if a body of clergy become intoxicated with pride upon 
their inalienable throne, if they voluntarily rush headlong 
with their eyes shut, falling from the whole height of Grod, 
that fall shakes not only superficially a family, a dynasty, or 
a king, but, throughout ages, the trembling resounds afar in 
the bowels of the eai'th ! 



II. 



Page 63. Note. 

ONE OF OUR PATRIARCHS OF CONTEMPORANEOUS 
SCIENCE, M. GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE. 



I LITTLE thought, when I quoted this name in company with 
Gralileo, that, Lefore I finished this volume, I should have 
to pronounce upon his tomb the following words. 

After so many eloquent tokens of respect addressed by 
my colleagues to om* illustrious deceased friend, permit a 
man, who has no right to weep for him here but friend- 
ship, and the assent of his family, to add one pai-ting word. 

M. Geofifroy Saint-Hilaire belongs to us aU as a portion of 
that patrimony of glory wliich France distributes to the least 
among us. It is certain that the history of the Revolution 
and of those great campaigns of Egypt, Spain, and Portugal, 
would be incomplete for us, if we did not see, at the same 
time, science following, with M. Geoflfroy Saint-Hilaire, the 
road opened by the sword, and turning the devastation of 
war to the profit of civilization. M. GeofiFroy Saint-Hilaire, 
in Eg}^t and at the Pyi-amids, explains and aggrandizes the 
destiny of Napoleon, as Ai'istotle did that of Alexander. 

Tliat the world might know what France could assemble 
and do at the same time, it was necessary that there should 
be a man who, from 1792 to 1815 and to 1830, should, in 
an admii'able series, without ever stopping, pursue one and 
the same idea amid the uproai* of revolutions . and battles. 
Tlie eai-th was shaken for more than half a century ; govern- 
ments pass away, Napoleon faUs, another dynasty appears. 



GEOFFEOY SAINT-HILAIRE. 



181 



and disappears; yet upon tliis perpetually sliaken soil, in 
this sort of siege sustained by France against the world, 
there is here a thinker, another Archimedes, whom nothing 
disturbs or disconcerts, who with his eyes fixed upon the 
creation, seeks its mysteries with serenity, as if he did not 
belong to the region of tempests. When however France is 
materially conquered, the persevering thought of that great 
mind invades foreign lands ; and the greatest writer of 
Germany, Goethe, seems to have become familial* with every 
science only to inaugm-ate and worthily make popular in 
the world the perfectly French \-ictory of M. Geoffiroy Saint- 
Hilaire. 

How is it that, with so httle taste for noise and show, 
this man, entirely bmied in science, has become popular 
among us ? Because the idea which he brought to light is, 
in many respects, the basis of om* epoch. The desii'e, the 
presentiment, the necessity of a vast unity, is what is now 
agitating the world. M. Geoffroy Saint -Hilau-e, a true pre- 
cui'sory genius, has established, in natm'e and science, this 
hai'monious principle which we are still seeking in the civil, 
political, and religious world. Such is the bond by which 
the works of this creating mind are connected with the actual 
labom' of all the human race ; and, as he anived first at that 
depth of unity which everybody seeks by difi'erent ways, he 
has unwittingly di'awn eveiybody into the interests of his 
gloiy. We were not all capable of follomng each of his steps; 
our ignorance and our impotency delayed us ; but we said to 
ourselves, he outsteps us ; he goes where the age will arrive 
later ; and we advanced in sm-e confidence towards the future, 
knowing that he possessed it ah*eady in the order of science 
and natiu-e. 

At the same time that science was entirely a creating power 
in him, it had a sort of gi-and character, as if stamped with 
antiquity and religion. What persevering enthusiasm at a 
time when they pretend no more exists ! What grandeur ! 
Wliat a natm'al amplitude in his conceptions ! "What a 



182 



GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE. 



patriarchal simplicity ! ^ATiat transports ! AVhat inward 
deliglit in tliis man who passes his life in discovering and 
creating ! He is of the family of Ai'chimedes and Kepler ! 
He has been accused of being a poet ; yes, doubtless he was, 
like those gi-eat men, by a more sudden, more imperious and 
more divining sentiment of exact truth. 

After ha^dng received so many rays of intelligence from 
that mind in its strength, it remained for us to learn from 
him, for the last ten years, how we ought to die. He had 
grown blind like Galileo; but his serenity had not been 
troubled one moment. He used still to smile at those mar- 
vels of the earth and heavens which he saw, comprehended 
and discovered, vdth. the eyes of the mind. In that incredi- 
ble tranquillity, we felt that he was a man who had a good 
perception of the laws and the concealed plan of the Creator. 
He had been initiated in the secret works of Providence ; 
and, from that spectacle, he had brought away the serenity 
of the just. What is more sublime than this death of 
genius which, thus dii'ected and conducted, is the very 
holiness of the intelligence ! Smiling, it approaches un- 
veiled Truth ; and at leng-th descends here fearlessly into eter- 
nal Science. 

Who is there among us, where is the sovereign, who would 
not desire such an end? And may these words resound 
even to that empty mansion which, only yesterday, was so 
tilled with the genius of this gTeat man, whose widow and 
daughter, inconsolable, are listening to hear the last sound 
about this gTave. Then- pious hands, gentlemen, preserved 
him for us ten years beyond the temi marked by nature, 
and never quitted him day or night all that time ! Delight- 
ing in this marvel of conjugal and filial piety, that truly 
good man wo\dd say : " I am almost happy in being blind !" 
May those noble women be rewarded, by the twofold immor- 
tality of him they mom-n, and, the more so, as the son and 
brother, who remains, reminds us of the husband and father 
who is now no more. 



GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE. 



183 



Among tlie many families wMcli have brouglit to this 
groimd their dearest friends, how few have obtained what 
even death cannot carry away ! They have almost aU retired, 
empty-handed, and without any present consolation. Bnt 
yon, on the contrary, carry away, with the giory of the name 
which is yom's, a visible immortality, the permanent sign of 
that which our eyes cannot discern ! 

M. Geoffi.'oy Saint-Hilaire accompanied our armies in their 
triumphal march. Is it only by mere chance that he is laid 
at this moment by the side of his friend General Poy ? Who, 
among yon, does not remember that meeting of one of your 
academies, at which M. Cuvier related how the devotedness 
of M. Geoffi-oy Saint-Hilau-e had saved, from the massacre 
of the 2nd September, your great friend Hatiy ? The whole 
assembly applauded ; a man rushed through the crowd, and 
cast himself into the arms of Geofiroy Saint-Hilaire, sapng . 
" Dear friend, you have heart, soul, genius, everything for 
you !" That man was General Eoy. 

He was here waiting for some one. It was necessary that 
the warrior and the sage should be again united. Now, these 
two brothers in glory here meet again in death. 

Adieu, doubly immortal spirit ; thou who wast so indulgent 
upon earth, do not at this moment despise my homage ! I 
bid thee fareweU. in the name of aU those whose career thou 
hast opened ! Aid me with thy intelligence and virtue ! The 
greatest blessing of my hfe will always be to have obtained 
thy friendship ! 



III. 



ANSWER TO A SPEECH PRONOUNCED JUNE 20th AT 
THE END OF MY LECTURES. 

(As this answer contains an engagement on my part, it ought 
to find its place here.) 

The testimony which I receive from you is the more precious, 
as it is addi'essed, not to me, but to our common belief ; in 
hearing you it is sufficient to perceive that a new life begins 
to circulate. The generation which preceded you is now 
weary ; it is necessary that you, in yom* tm-n, should bring a 
new inspiration to the world ; and may that generous soid, 
which you show me, not remain only in books, but enter ^vith 
you into possession of aftairs and things ! This is what we 
mutually promise one another to do when om- time shall come. 

This age has received immense material gifts ; those newly- 
discovered instruments of incalcidable power, stiU expecting 
the idea which is to set them to work. Suppose that the age 
which has seized upon aU the powers of natm'e should ulti- 
mately develop a spirit proportioned to such means ; and t^ll 
me whether any times could have accomplished greater things. 
To restore the equilibrium betAveen the soul and matter, is, 
Gentlemen, a gi-and future, and that futiue is yom's, each of 
you akeady contains a portion of it within himself. All 
nations, aU races of men, are to bring a fragment to this great 
work. Only let us strive that our coimtry may preserve and 
increase her right to caU herself the conscience of mankind ! 

Tliis moment. Gentlemen, wiU ever be remembered by me 
as a souvenir and a pledge of my alliance with the youth of 
France, in what we may m'cU term a sacred war for religious 
and social liberty. It is not a professor who says this, but a 
friend speaking to his friends. 



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Goethe, 
cloth. 



Outline of Contents. 



I. Sketch of the History of the Eng- 
lish Drama before Shakspeare. 
— R. Greene and Marlowe. 
II. Shakspeare's Life and Times. 
III. Shakspeare's Dramatic Style, and 
I'oetic View of the World and 
Things. 

" We welcome it as an addition to our 
books on the national dramatist — ex- 
haustive, comprehensive, and philo- 
sophical after a scholastic fashion, and 
throAving new lights iipon many things 
in Shakspeare."— S/vec^a^or. 

" The work of Ulrici in the original, 
has held, ever since its publication, an 
honoured place upon our shelves. We 
consider it as being, when taken all in 
all, one of the most valuable contribu- 
tions ever made to tlie criticism of 
Shakspeare. The theoretical system 
upon which it rests, if not altogetlier 
accurate or completely exhaustive, is, 
at all events, wide and searching ; its 
manner of expression is almost every- 
where clear and practical, and its 
critical expositions are given with 
equal delicacy of feeling and liveliness 

of fancy Here there are treated, 

successively, Shakspeare's language, his 
mode of representing characters, and 
his dramatic invention. An extract or 
two, under eacli of these heads, will 
suffice to show how rationally, as well 
as how instructively, each is handled. 

Om- author has not only spoken 

with excellent good sense, but has 
placed one or two important points of 
Shakspeare's poetical character in a 
clearer light than that in wliich we are 
accustomed to regard them. Shakspeare 
is sliown tobetlie historically-dramatic 
poet of enlightened Christianity; and 
the highest value of his works consists 
in their adequately representing, in the 
light of imagination, tlie Christian 
prospect of man's mysterious destiny." 
— TaiVs Magazine. 

" A good translation of Dr. Ulrici's 
work on Sliakspeare cannot fail of being 
welcome to tlie P^nglisli tliinker. It is, 
in fact, a vindication of our great poet 
from a charge wliicli has lately been 
brought against him by critics on both 



IV. Criticism of Shakspeare's Plays. 
V. Dramas ascribed to Shakspeare of 
doubtful Authority. 

VI. Calderon and Goethe in their rela- 
tion to Shakspeare. 



sides of the Atlantic. Dr. Ulrici boldly 
claims for liim the rank of an emi- 
nently Christian author The pre- 
sent work is the least German of all 
German books, and contains remark- 
able novelty in its views of the subject 
and the arrangement of its topics. The 
plan adopted "by Dr. Ulrici of contem- 
plating each play in the light of a 
central idea is especially deserving of 

all praise We recommend the entire 

criticism to the perusal of the judicious 

reader An ingenious treatise."— 

AthencEum. 

" We welcome this work as a valu- 
able accession to Shaksperian litera- 
ture. It is the principal object of Dr. 
Ulrici's criticisms of the several plays, 
to trace and bring to light the funda- 
mental and \ivifymg idea of each. In 
this difficult task we think he has 
been eminently successful We can- 
not dismiss this very valuable work, 
which breathes a tone of pure and ex- 
alted morality, derived from a mind 
truly religious, and whose holy and 
chastening influence expresses itself 
throughout, -without remarking how 
much we admire the excellent manner 
in which it is translated." — Inquirer. 

" Excellencies of a high order per- 
vade this performance, which, in our 
judgment, entitle it to the grateful re- 
ception of all who are desnous of be- 
coming better acquainted with the 

mind of Shakspeare The sketch 

of the modern dramatic art with which 
the book opens, as well as of the life of 
Shakspeare, is well drawn ; indeed, the 
historical sketches througliout are ad- 
mirably executed The author's 

views are ingenious, and the criticisms 
on the several dramas are admirable, 
and Avill fully repay the reader's study." 
— 'Nonconformist. 



I 



The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined. 

By Dr. David Friedrich Strauss. 3 vols. 8vo. £\ 16s. cloth, 



" In regard to learning, acuteness, and 
sagacious conjectures, the work resem- 



bles Niebuhr's ' History of Rome.' The 
general manner of treating the subject 



Chapman, BrotJiers, 121, Newgate-street. 3 



and arranging the chapters, sections, tires There is not an objection, a 

and parts of the argument, indicates cavil, or rational solution which is not 
consummate dialectical skill ; while the instantly fused and incorporated iuto 
style is clear, tlie expression direct, and his system."— Christian Remembrancei-. 

the author's openness in referring to his 1 "A work which is acknowledged, on 

sources of information, and stating liis ' all sides, to be a master-piece of its 
conclusions in all their simplicity, is kind, to evince signs of profound and 

candid and exemplary It not only varied learning, and to be written in a 

surpasses all its predecessors of its kind i spirit of serious earnestness." — West- 

in learning, acuteness, and thorough ' mirister Review. 

investigation, but it is marked by a "I found in M. Strauss a young man 
serious and earnest s^inx."— Christian ; full of candour, gentleness, and modesty 
Exaininer. \ — one possessed of a soul that was al- 
" The position which the Historical ! most mysterious, and, as it were, sad- 
Scriptures occupy in Strauss's system j dened by the reputation he had gained, 
does not seem to have attracted suiS- j He scarcely seems to be the author of 
cient attention among ourselves. It j the work under consideration."— QzMwe^, 
addresses itself, as will iiave been Revue des Mondes. 
already observed, to a higher element " Strauss is too candid to be popular." 
in the mind than the common reluct- — Voices of the ChurcJi, hyUie Rev. J. R. 
ance to acquiesce in supernatural narra- Reard, D.D. 

Lirermore's Commentary on tlie Four Gospels. 

8V0. 43. 6d, cloth. 

A New Translation ef the ProTerbs^ Ecclesiastes, and the 

Canticles ; with Introductions and Jsotes, chiefly Explanatory. By G. R. 
ISTOYES, D. D. 12mo. 8s. cloth. 

De Wette's Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old 

Testament. Translated by Theodore Pakker. 2 vols. 8vo. £l. 4s. cloth. 

A Discourse of blatters pertaining to Religion. 

By Theodore Parker. Post 8vo. 7s. cloth. 

CONTENTS : 



Book 1.— Of Religion in General; or, 

a Discourse of the Sentiment and its 

Manifestations. 
Book 2.— The Relation of the Religious 

Sentiment to God; or, a Discourse 

of Inspiration. 
Book 3.— The Relation of the Religious 

Sentiment to Jesus of Xazareth ; or, 

a Discom-se of Christianity. 

" There is a mastery shown over ] 
every element of the Great Subject, 
and the shght treatment of it in parts 
no reader can help atti-ibuting to the 
plan of the work, rather than to the 
incapacity of the author. From the 
resources of a mind singularly exube- 
rant by nature and laboriously enriched 
by culture, a system of results is here 
thrown up, and spread out in luminous 
exposition." — Prospective Review. 

" Mr. Parker is no ephemeral teacher. 

His aspirations for the future 

are not less gloTving than his estimate 
for the past. He revels in warm anti- 
cipations of the orient splendours, of 
which all past systems are but the pre- 
cursors His language is neitl)er 

narrow nor unattractive ; there is a 
consistency and boldness about it which 



Book 4.— The Relation of the Religious 
Sentiment to the Greatest of Books ; 
or, a Discourse of the Bible. 

Book 5.— The Relation of the Religious 
Sentiment to tlie Greatest of Human 
Institutions ; or, a Discourse of the 
Church. 



will strike upon chords which, when 
they do vibrate, will make tlie ears 
more than tingle. We are lining in 
an age which deals in broad and ex- 
haustive theories ; which requires a 
system that will account for everything, 
and assigns to every fact a place, 
and that no forced one, in the vast 
economy of things. TTliatever defects 
3Ir. Parker's view may have, it meets 
these requisites. It is large enough, 
and promising enougli ; it is not afraid 
of history. It puts forth claims ; it is 
an articulately speaking voice. It deals 
neither in compromise nor abatement. 
It demands a hearing; it speaks with 
authority. It has a complete and de- 
termined aspect. It is dclicicnt neither 
in candour nor promises; and what- 
ever comes forward in this way will 



4 



TForks published by 



certainly find hearers."— C/mj^/aw Re- 
membrancer. 

" It is impossible for any one to read 
the writings of Tlieodore Parker with- 
out being strongly impressed by them. 
They abound in passages of fervid elo- 
quence—eloquence as remarkable for 



the truth of feeling which directs it, as 
for the genius by which it is inspired. 
They are distinguished by philosophical 
thought and learned investigation, no 
less than by the sensibility to beauty 
and goodness which they manifest." — 
Christian Reformer. 



A Retrospect of the Religious Life of Eugland ) 

Or, the Church, Puritanism, and Free Inquuy. By John Jajnies Tayler, 
B.A. Post 8V0. 103 6d. cloth. 



" The work is ^vritten in a chastely 
beautiful style, manifests extensive 
reading and careful research ; is full 
of thought, and decidedly original in 
I its character. It is marked also by 
i the modesty which usually characterises 
true merit."— /«yi«ye7-. 

"Mr. Tayler is actuated by no sec- 
tarian bias, and we heartily thank him 
for tliis addition to our religious Utera- 
ture."— Westminster Review. 

" It is not often our good fortune to 
meet with a book so well conceived, 
so well written, and so instructive as 
this. The various phases of the national 
mind, described witli the clearness and 
force ofMr.Tayler.fm-nisli an inexhaust- 
ible material for reflection. Mr. Tayler 
regards all parties in turn from an equita- 
ble point of view, is tolerant towards in- 
tolerance, and admires zeal and excuses 

Human Nature : 



fanaticism, wherever he sees honesty. 
Nay, he openly asserts that the religion 
of mere reason is not the rehgion to 
produce a practical effect on a people ; 
and therefore regards his own class 
only as one element in a better possible 
church. Tlie clear and comprehen- 
sive grasp with which he marshals his 
facts, is even less admirable than the 
impartiality, nay, more than that, the 
general kindliness with which he re- 
Sects upon them." — Examiner. 

" The writer of this volume has 
all the calmiiess belonging to one who 
feels himself not mixed up with the 
struggle he describes. There is about 
it a tone of great moderation and can- 
dour : and we cannot but feel confident 
tliat we have here, at least, the product 
of a tliorouglUy honest mind." — Lowe's 
Edinburgh Magazine. 



A Philosophical Exposition of the DiAine Institution of Reward and 
I'unishment, which obtains in tlie Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Consti- 
tutions of Man. 12mo. 2s. 6d. cloth. 



"It is refreshing to light upon a book 
which has so much originality of con- 
ception as this, and in which the writer 
is bold enough to have an opinion of 
his omi." — Critic. 

" The introduction is especially re- 
markable for its power— not only power 
of words, but of ideas." — Spectator. 

" This little volume well deserves a 
thoughtfiU perusal, which it will re- 



ward with much of truth and much of 
beauty, though not unmingled, we 
must think, with obscm-ity and error." — 

Inquirer. 

" The Essay we have been reviewing, 
concludes in an eloquent on-looking 
strain of thouglit, which forms a fit se- 
quel to the interesting views the author 
has previously developed."— CArwfeara 
Teacher. 



Clianning's M orks^ Complete. 

Edited by Joseph Barker. In 6 vols. 12mo. Gs. sewed; 



3. cloth. 



" Channing's function was rather that 
of the prophet than that of the scholar 
and philosopher; his scattered pieces 
have gone out into the world like so 
many oracles of religious wisdom ; he 
uttered fortli in tones of such deep 
conviction and tliriUing persuasiveness, 
sentiments and aspirations wliich lie 



folded up in every human breast,— that 
he has called out a wide responsive 
sympathy, and made thousands receive 
through the kindling medium of his 
aflectibnate spirit, a fresh communica- 
tion of religious lifo.:'— Retrospect of the 
Religious Life of England, by John James 
Tayler, R.A. 



Channing's Works^ Complete. (Ueddcrwick's Edition.) 

G vols, post 8vo. reduced to £1. Is. cloth. 

Endeavours after the Christian Life. 

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Chapman, Brotliers, 121, Newgate-street. 



5 



The Bible and the Child. 

A Discourse on Eeligious Education. By James Martineau. l2mo. is. 

The Edueatiou of Taste. 

A Series of Lectures. By "WrLiiAM lilACCAi,!,. 12mo. 2s. 6d. 

CONTENTS : 

1. Introductory. 2. The Xature of Taste. 3. The Culture of Taste. 4. Taste 
and Religion. 5. Taste and Morality. 6. Taste and Politics. 7. Taste and 
Planners. 8. Concluding Remarks. 

The Agents of Cinlization. 

A Series of Lectures. By WrLiiiAM IMaccael'. 12mo. 3s. 6d. cloth. 

CONTENTS. 

1. Introductory. 2. The Hero. 3. The Poet. 4. The Priest. 5. The Artist. 
6. The Propliet. 7. The Philosopher. 8. The Apostle. 9. The Martyr. 10. 
Concluding Remarks. 

lectures to Young Men, 

On the Cultivation of the Mind, the Formation of Character, and the Con- 
duct of Life. By George W. Burnap. Royal 8vo. 9d. 

" This, we can foresee, is destined to "We do not know of any work on the 

become a household book, and it is a same subject of equal excellence, and 

long time since we met with any work those of our readers who are wise will 

better deser\-ing of such distinction, buy and study ii"— The Apprentice. 

Lectures to Young Men. 

On their Moral Dangers and Duties. By Ariel Abbot Li\t:rmore. 12mo. 
cloth, price 3s. 

Hymns for the Christian Church and Home. 

Edited by James 3Iartineau. Fifth Edition, l2mo. 3s. 6d. cloth. 

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. 

By Theodore Parker, l2mo. 7s. 6d. cloth. 

Ware's Inquii'y into the Foundation, Endences, and Truths of 

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32mo. 2s. cloth. ^ 

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The Complete Works of the Rev. Orville Dewey, D.D. 

8vo. 7s. 6d. cloth. 



6 



Works 2nihUs7ied hy 



The Life of the Rev. Joseph Bljinco Mliite. 



"Written by Himself. With Tortions of liis Correspondence. Edited by 
John Ha.milton Thom. 3 vols, post 8vo. £\ 4s. cloth. 



" This is a book which rivets the at- 
tention, and makes the heart bleed. It 
has, indeed, ^vlth re^jard to liimself, in 
its substance, thougii not in its ar- 
rangement, an almost dramatic cha- 
racter; so cleai-ly and strongly is the 
living, thinking, active man projected 
from the face of the records which he 
has left. 

" His spirit was a battle-field, upon 
which, with fltietuaiing fortune and bin- 
guiar intensity, the powers of belief and 
scepticism waged, from first to last, their 
unceasing war ; and ■within tlie com- 
pass of his experience are presented to 
our view most of the great moral and 
spiritual problems that attach to tlie 
condition of our race." — Quarterly Rev. 

"We have awaited this book with 
something more than curiosity — we 
have received it with reverential feel- 
ings, and perused it with a deep and 
sustained interest." — Inrjuircr. 

" This book will improve his (Blanco 
Wliite's) reputation. There is much in 



the peculiar construction of his mind, 
in its close union of the moral with the 
intellectual faculties, and in its restless 
desire for truth, which may remind the 
reader of Doctor Arnold.'"— Examitier. 

" There is a depth and force in this 
book which tells." — Chridian Remem- 
brancer. 

" These volumes have an interest 
beyond the character of Blanco "White. 
And beside the intrinsic interest of his 
self-portraitui'e, whose character is indi- 
cated in some of our extracts, the corre- 
spondence,in the letters of Lord Holland, 
Soutliey, Coleridge, Clianning, Norton, 
Mill, Professor Powell, Dr. Hawkins, 
and otlier names of celebrity, has con- 
siderable attractions in itself, mtliout 
any relation to the biographical purpose 
with wliich it was publisiied. From 
these lettei-s, as well as from the narra- 
tive of his life in Spain, we could draw 
curious and extractable matter ad libi- 
tum ; but our space is exhausted, and 
we must c\os,Q."— Spectator. 



The Works of Joseph Stevens Buckiuiuster : 

With Memoirs of liis Life. 2 vols. Post 8vo. £\. cloth. 

The Collected Works of Henry Ware^ Jan., D.». 

Vols. 1 and 2, Post 8vo. price 7s, per volume, cloth. 

*** The works will probably be completed in three volumes. 

A Memoir of the Life of Henry Ware^ Jun. 



By his Brother, John Ware, M.D. With two Portraits, 2 vols,, post 8vo. 
price 10s. cloth. 

general knowledge of his writings, his 
name has long been associatecf with 
tlie image of whatever is pm-e, gentle, 
devoted, aflectionate, constraining, and 
persuasive in a minister of Christ." — 
Pro.spective Review. 



" In his ovm country he was better 
understood than Clianning, and it is 
said in tliis biography, not in so many 
words, but by imphcation, that his per- 
sonal influence was greater; whilst, in 
this country, with multitudes who never 
saw him, and who have but a very 



charm and constitutes the atmosphere 
of this book." — American Christian E.va- 
miner. 



Life of Charles Follen. 

By Sirs. Follen. 12mo. 6s. 6d. cloth. 
" We frankly confess we were not 
prepared, from Avliat we kncAV of the 
enthusiasm of the autlior, for the tone 
of subdued aflection which makes the 

Memoirs of the Life of the Uev. Lant Carpenter, L.L.D. 3 

With Selections from his Correspondence. Edited by liis Son, Russell 
Lant Carpenter, B. A. 8vo. with a portrait, 12s. cloth. 

The Autobiography and Justification of J. Ronge. 

Translatetl from the German, Fifth Edition, by J. Lord, A.M. Fcp. 
8vo. Is. 



" A plain, straightforward, and manly 
statement of facts connected with, the 



career of this remarkable man."— West- 
minster Review. 



Chapman, Brothers, 121, Newgate-dreet. 



7 



lutlier Reyiyed. 

Or, a Short Account of Johannes Konge, the Bold Eeformer of the Catholic 
Chui'ch in Germany. By A. Andresen. 8vo. Is. 

The Germau Scliism aud the Irish Priests. 

Being a Critique of Laing's Notes on the Schism in the German-Catholic 
Chiu-ch. By E. W. Greg. l2mo. 6d. 

Selections from the Writings of Feuelou. 

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Historical Sketches of the Old Painters. 

By the Author of the " Log Cabin." 2s. 6d. paper cover ; 3s. cloth. 

they may have known little else than 



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The Log Cahin j or the World before You. 

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The style is simple, easy, and for the 
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' You have often asked me,' says the 
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stories on Sunday afternoons, about 
i-eal people. Sometimes I have wanted 
to read my own books at those pleasant 
quiet times ; and have wished that you 

Scenes and Characters, illustrating Christian Truth. 

Edited by the Rev. H. Ware. 2 vols. l8mo. cloth. Reduced to 5s. 

latins and Vespers 3 

By John Bowring. 



could, be reading to yourselves, instead 
of listening to me. But you have often 
said, that the books which tell of the 
real people who lived long, long ago, 
and were called Jews, and who once 
had the land where Jesus Christ was 
born, had such long puzzhng words in 
them, that you could not read fast 
enough to enjoy the story. Now here 
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great many more.' 

" Those who are engaged in teaching 
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Inquirer. 



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Sketehes of Married Life. 

By Mrs. Follen. Royal 8vo. Is. id. 



ness and charm in many of the pieces 
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8 



Works puhlished hy 



The Sick Chamber : a Manual for Nurses. 



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divine." — Atlas. 

" A judicious and useful manual ; 
concise, yet full, conveying the best re- 
sults of experience in so pleasing and 
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"Tlie writer has evidently had some 
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conveying the necessary instructions in 

plain and intelligible language 

In our judgment this will be found a 
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"This short Sick Chamber Manual 
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The concluding remarks, calculated to 
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Consolatory views of Death. 

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Circumstances; and in explanation 
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of Suicides." Post 8vo. Is. in paper 

" Mr. Cooper possesses undeniable 
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liness with which he avows, and the 
boldness and zeal with wliicli he urges, 
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for human rights, and moral power, 
in these lectures, are worthy of all 
h onour . ' ' — tso nconformist. 

" Mr. Cooper's style is intensely clear 
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and vigorous." — Morning Advertiser. 

" Much pleasure as we have had in 
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never entered upon the agreeable duty 
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away Onman Life^ under any 

and defence of the misrepresented doc- 
AS Cooper, Author of " The Purgatory 
cover. 

thoughtful and energetic mind with 
such a fulness of satisfaction— such a 
glowing of enthusiasm, as fills our 
bosom and Avarms our heart on the 
present occasion. We can now hail 
him as a brother indeed, a co-worker in 
the good cause of peace and good will." 
— Kentish Independent. 

" These two orations are thoroughly 
imbued with the peace doctrines which 
have lately been making rapid progress 
in many unexpected quarters. To all 
who take an interest in that great 
movement, we would recommend this 
book, on account of the fervid elo- 
quence and earnest truthfulness Avhich 
pervades every line of it."— Manchester 
Examiner. 



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9 



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By the Eev. Henry Ware, Jun., D.D. 12mo. cloth ; 5s. 

Sermons. 

By the Eev. F. W. P. Greenwood, D.D. With a Portrait. 2 vols. l2mo. 
cloth; Gs. 

Margaret : a Tale of the Real and Ideal, Blight and Bloom. 

Including Sketches of a Place not before described, called Mons Christi. 
l2mo. cloth ; 6s. 



10 



IFuHs pi'hli-'ihcJ hi/ 



London, 121, Neicgnte-street, 
August 2ofh, ] 84G. 

PROPOSAL 

FOR TUE 

PUBLICATION OF A CHEAP EDITION 

OF 

THE EVIDENCES 

OF THE 

GEIUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

BY 

ANDREWS NORTON, 

PROFESSOR OF SACRED LITERATURE, 
Harvard University, Massachusetts. 



There will be about fifty pages of new matter in the first 
volume, and this edition of the work ^^'ill embody thi'oughout 
various alterations and corrections made by the author at the 
present time. 



The Work consists of tlu-ee Parts, as follows : — 
PART I. 

mOOF THAT THE GOSPELS REMAIN ESSENTIALLY THE SAME 
AS THEY WERE ORIGINALLY COMPOSED. 

PART II. 

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE THAT THE GOSPELS HAVE BEEN 
ASCRIBED TO THEIR TRUE AUTHORS. 

PART III. 

ON THE EVIDENCES FOR THE GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS 
AFFORDED BY THE EARLY HERETICS. 



C/iapman, Brothers, 1^},, Nerrp-ff-:- Atro^i 



The very copious Notes appended to eacli volume constitute 
about lialf the amount of tlie entii'e work, the principal subjects 
of which are as follows : — 

CONTENTS OF THE NOTES. 

NOTE I. 

Further remjoiks on the present state or the Text of the Gospels. 
Is^OTE 11. 

Various Readings of the copies of the Gospels extant in the time 
OF Origen, which are particularly noticed by him. 

NOTE III. 

Undisputed Interpolations in Manuscripts of the gospels. 

NOTE IV. 

On the Origin of the correspondences among the first three Gospels. 
NOTE V. 

Justin Martyr's Quotations. 

NOTE VI. 

On the Writings ascribed to Apostolical Fathers. 

NOTE VII. 

On the Statue which is said by Justin Martyr, and others, to 

HAVE BEEN ERECTED AT ROME TO SiMON MAGUS. 

NOTE VIII. 
On THE Clementine Homilies. 

NOTE IX. 

On the false Charges brought against the Heretics, particularly 
by the later Fathers. 

NOTE X. 

On the Jeavtcsh Dispensation, Pentateuch, and the other books of 
THE Old Testament. 

NOTE XI. 

On THE Distinction made by the Ancients between Things INTELLI- 
GIBLE AND Things SENSIBLE ; on the Use of the Terms SPIRIT- 
UAL and MATERIAL, AS applied to their Speculations ; and on 
THE Nature of Matter. 

NOTE XII. 
On Basilides and the Basilidians. 

NOTE XIII. 

On the Gospel of Marcion. 

NOTE XIV. 
On the use of the words ©EOS and DEUS. 



12 



Works pnhUshed hy 



The American Edition occupies three large 8vo voliunes, com- 
prising in the Avhole 1572 pages, and has been hitherto nearly 
inaccessible to the Biblical Student, in consequence of its extre- 
mely high price ; — it has been selling for 2Z. 14s. per copy. 

Messrs. Chapman, Brothers, propose to publish the entire 
work in two handsome volumes, demy 8vo, elegantly bound in 
cloth ; the first volume will be the same as the first volume of 
the original, the second one will comprise the second and thii'd 
volumes of the American edition, each of which are smaller than 
the first. 

The text of tlie Work will be printed in type of the 
same size and character as that in which the present 
paragraph appears, and the notes will be printed in 
type like the first paragraph of the quotations appen- 
ded to this Prospectus. 

The Work ^^dU be offered to Subscribers on the terms speci- 
fied below ; and as soon as 400 copies are subscribed for, the 
Work will be put to press. 

J^ricc to ^Subgci-tticr&. 

For one copy 15*- O''- 

For five copies 13 6 each. 

For ten copies 12 6 » 



NOTICES OF THE WORK. 

I'rom the Quarterly Revieto, March, 1846. 

" Professor Norton has devoted a whole volume full of inge- 
nious reasoning and solid learning, to show that the Gnostic 
sects of the second century admitted in general the same sacred 
books with the orthodox Chi-istians. However doubtful may be 
his complete success, he has made out a strong case, which, as 
far as it goes, is one of the most valuable confutations of the 
extreme German yiopiCovreQ, an excellent subsidiary contribution 
to the proof of the ' genuineness of the Scriptures' * * * 
His work on the Genuineness of the Scriptures is of a high in- 
tellectual order." 



Chapman, Brothers 121. Nf^wgate-dre'-i 



From the North American Review. 

" This (the 2nd and 3rd volumes) is a great work upon the philosophy of the 
early history of our faith, and upon the relations of that faith with the religious 
systems and the speculative opinions which then formed the belief or engaged 
the attention of the whole civilized world. The subject is one of vast compass 
and great importance; and fortunately it has been examined with much 
thoroughness, caution, and independence. The conclusions arrived at are those 
of one who thinks for himself, — not created by early prepossessions, nor restricted 
within the narrow limits of opinions peculiar to any school or sect. The origi- 
nality and good sense of 3Ir. Norton's general remarks impress the reader quite 
as strongly as the accuracy of his scholarship, and the wide range of learning with 
which the subject is illustrated. His mind is neither cumbered nor confused by 
the rich store of its acquisitions, but works ■w'ltii the greatest clearness and effect 
when engaged in the most discursive and far-reaching investigations. 

" A great portion of the work, indeed, belongs to ecclesiastical history ; but it 
does not deal with the men and the events of that history, it relates almost exclu- 
sively to thoughts and theories. It analyzes systems of philosophy ; it examines 
creeds ; it traces the changes and the influences of opinions. Nearly the whole of 
the work, as the Gennan would say, belongs to the history of ' pure reason,' The 
originahty of 3Ir. Norton's views is one of their most striking characteristics. He 
does not deem it necessary, as too many theologians have done, to defend the 
records of his faith by stratagem. The consequence is, that his work is one of the 
most unanswerable books that ever was written. It comes as near to demonstra- 
tion as the nature of moral reasoning will admit. 

" As an almost unrivalled monument of patience and industry, of ripe scholar- 
ship, thorough research, eminent ability, and conscientious devotion to the cause of 
truth, the work may well claim respectful consideration. The reasoning is emi- 
nently clear, simple, and direct ; and not a single page contains any parade of 
scholarship, though the whole work is steeped in the spirit, and abounds with the 
results of the most profound learning. The simplicity and chasteness of the style 
may be deemed even excessive, and the logic is as pure, lucid, and stringent as 
that of the mathematician. 

"The tenets of the Gnostics, when viewed in their relation to the doctrines of 
Christianity, and to the philosophy of the Greeks, open many curious questions 
respecting the phenomena of mind, and the formation of opinion, which are dis- 
cussed in these volumes vat\i great ability. There is an air of freshness and ori- 
ginality in these speculations which gives them a lively interest, in spite of the 
abstruseness of the subject. 

" The whole tenor of the work bears out the presumption which immediately 
arises, that labour begun and prosecuted in this way could not have been sus- 
tained by selfish considerations,— that the author could not have been animated 
by regard for his own reputation, but must have found his only incitement and 
reward in the expected gain to the interests of truth." 

From the American Christian Examiner. 

" The note on the Old Testament, which extends to one hundred and fifty pages, 
forming, we may say, a treatise in itself, is remarkable for richness of material, and 
original and acute, but somewhat starthng criticism. Its object is to present a 
solution of those difficulties in regard to tlie Old Testament which were felt by 
the early Christians, CathoUc as well as Heretical, and which still embarrass the 
thoughtful reader. 

" It is a field in which many have laboured, often with a very unsatisfactory 
result. Mr. Norton boldly enters upon it, maps it out, and sets up his landmarks 
so far as he thinks the dim struggling light which gleams on the surrounding 
darkness allows ; and where the tliick sliadows of antiquity render fux-ther advance 
impossible, he pauses and honestly tells us tliat he can 'no fm-tlier go.' He writes 
with entire seriousness, under a deep conviction of the worth of rehgion, and 
with a full belief that the Jewish religion 'proceeded immediately from God.' 
"WHiatever may be thought of some of his conclusions, no one who attentively 
reads will have cause to complain that his religious feelings have been wantonly 
attacked or outraged by flippant remark or sarcasm. If some objects are pre- 
sented under aspects which may appear to him new or strange, he will find the 
reasons given, which he can weigii and judge for himself. 

" Whoever writes as cautiously as Mr. Norton, who offers no remark which has 
not been well considered,— who matures his thoughts by years of patient study 
and meditation, has a right certainly to expect, on the part of his readers, that 
degree of attention and patience wliicli will prevent any serious misconception of 
his meaning, or any misapplication of his principles." 



14 



JForl-s j)ul)lhUe(l hy 



From the Christian Reformer. 

" The author of this volume (the fii'st) lias the merit of having brought down a 
subject hitliorto beyond the reach of ordinary readers, to the level of the plainest 
understanding. A familiar acquaintance with the topics upon whicli lie had 
occasion to treat, has enabled him to write clearly and intelligibly upon them, and 
to present to the view of the uninitiated reader, in a pleasing and condensed form, 
the result of many years' laborious and careful research. 

" The volume contains abundant evidence that Mr. Norton has examined for 
himself the subjects upon which he treats, and has trusted as little as possible to 
secon d-h and i n for mat i on . 

" Mr. Js^'orton proves most satisfactorily, that the Gospels remain essentially 
the same as they were originally composed, by arguments drawn from a variety of 
inde])endent considerations. 

" We cannot allow ourselves to bring this review to a close, without bearing our 
willing testimony to the great value of the work, as far as it has gone, as well as 
to the ability with which the argument has been conducted." 

Fro7n the Frosi^ective Review. 

" The first volume of this work was published so long ago as the year 1837. At 
the close of it the autlior announces his intention to pursue the argument, by in- 
quiring into the evidence to be derived from the testimony of the different here- 
tical Sects. It is to this part of the subject that the second and third volumes, 
now before us, are directed, — which are evidently the fruit of much labour, 
research, and extensive reading ; and contain a variety of very curious incidental 
matter, highly interesting to the student of ecclesiastical history, and of the 
human mind. 

" There are many interesting and curious discussions of an incidental nature. 
Among these we may particularly specify the remarks on the character of the 
ancient philosophy in the third volume, and a very curious note in the appendix 
to the same volume, on the distinctions made by the ancients between things 
Intelligible and things Sensible, and on the nature of Matter. 

" IMay we be allowed, in conclusion, to express our regret that a work of so 
much interest and value should have been got up in so expensive a style, and 
consequently sold at a price which renders it almost inaccessible to many, who 
would be both most desirous and best qualified to derive from it the iulormation 
and improvement it is so well fitted to afford." 



In order to accelerate the publication of tlie work, Sub- 
scribers are requested to forward their names immediately to 
the publishers, Messrs. Chapman, Brothers ; or to !Mr. T. 
Forrest, Market-street, Manchester; Messrs. Gr. and J. Robinson, 
Castle-street, Liverpool ; Mr. H. C. Evans, Clare-street, Bristol ; 
m. J. Shaw, Carlton-street, Nottingham ; IMi's. H. H. Welsford, 
Exeter ; Mr. "W. iVlexander, Great Yarmouth ; Messrs. Slocombe 
and Simms, Leeds ; Mr. H. Slatter, Oxford ; Messrs. MacmiUan, 
Barclay, and Co., Cambridge; ]\L'. T. Clarke, George-street, 
Edinburgh ; and Mi\ Macleod, Ai'gyle-street, Glasgow. Orders 
will also be received for Subscription Copies by all Booksellers. 



Chapman, Brothers, 121, Netc gate-street. 



15 



Cfte Catftolir Series. 

PUBLISHED BY 

CHAPMAN, BEOTHERS, 121, NEWGATE STREET, LONDON. 



The PubHshers of "Tlie Catholic Series" intend it to consist of 'Works 
of a liberal and compreliensive character, judiciously selected, embracing 
vaiious depai'tments of literatui'e. 

An attempt has been made by the Church of Rome to realize the idea of 
Catholicism — at least in form — and with but a partial success ; an attempt 
■^m now be made to restore the word CatJioIic to its primitive significance, 
in its application to this Series, and to realize the idea of Catholicism in 

SPIRIT. 

It cannot be hoped that each volume of the Series will be essentially 
Catholic, and not partial, in its natui-e, for nearly aE men are partial ; — the 
many-sided and ?V?2pai'tial, or truly Catholic man, has ever been the rare ex- 
ception to his race. Catholicity may be expected in the Series, not in every 
volume composing it. 

An endeavour will be made to present to the Public a class of books of an 
interesting and thoughtful natm-e, and the authors of those of the Series 
which may be of a philosophical character ^atH probably possess little in com- 
mon, except a love of intellectual freedom and a faith in hmnan progress ; 
they mHI be united by sympathy of spirit, not by agreement in speculation. 

The Steel Engraving of the Ideal Head, which appears on the Title-page of 
the latter volumes — and which will be prefixed to each succeeding volume of 
the Series — has been taken from De la Roche's pictm-e of Christ. It was 
adopted, not specially, because it was intended by the artist to express his 
idea of Jesus Chiist (for that must always be imaginary), but as an embodi- 
ment of the highest ideal of humanity, and thus of a likeness to Jesus Christ, 
as its highest historical realization. 

In prefixing this Engraving to each nmnber of the Series, it is intended — 
by the absence of passion, by the profound intellectual power, the beneficent 
and loveful nature, and the serene, spuitual beauty, always associated in our 
noblest conception of the character it portrays — to imply the necessity of 
aspiration and progress, in order to unfold and realise the natui-e which the 
artist has essayed to express in this ideal image ; and thus to ty[)ify the object 
that vr^ be invariably kept in \dcw, by those whose writings may fonn a part 
of the Catholic Series, and which each volume composing it may be expected 
to promote. 



16 



Works imhlhlied ly 



CHARACTERIZATION OF THE CATHOLIC SERIES 

BY THE PRESS. 



"Too much encouragement cannot be given to enterprising publications 
like the present. They are directly in the teeth of popular prejudice and 
popular trash. They are addressed to the higher class of readers — those who 
think as weE as read. They are works at which ordinary publishers shudder 
as ' unsaleable,' but which are really capable of finding a very large public." 
— Foreign Quarterly. 

" The works abeady published embrace a great variety of subjects, and 
display a great variety of talent. They are not exclusively nor even chiefly 
religious ; and they are from the pens of Gennan, T\-ench, American, as well 
as English authors. "Without reference to the opinion which they contain, we 
may safely say that they are generally such as all men of free and philoso- 
phical minds would do weU to know and ponder." — Nonconformist. 

" This series deserves attention, both for what it has already given, and for 
what it promises." — Tait's llagazme. 

" It is highly creditable to Mr. Chapman to find his name in connexion 
with so much well-du'ected enterprise in the cause of German literatm-e and 
philosophy. He is the first publisher who seems to have proposed to himself 
the worthy object of introducing the English reader to the philosophic mind 
of Germany, uninfluenced by the tradesman's distrust of the marketable nature 
of the article. It is a very praiseworthy ambition; and we trust the public 
will justify his confidence. Nothing could be more unworthy than the at- 
tempt to discom'age, and indeed punish, such unseMsh enteqjrise, by attaching 
a bad reputation for orthodoxy to every thing connected with German philo- 
sophy and theology. This is especially unworthy in the 'student,' or the 
' scholar,' to borrow Fichte's names, who should disdain to set themselves the 
task of exciting, by their friction, a popular prejudice and clamour on matters 
on which the populace are no competent judges, and have, indeed, no judgment 
of their own, — and who should feel, as men themselves devoted to thought, 
that what makes a good book is not that it should gain its reader's acquiescence, 
but that it should multiply his mental experience ; that it should acquaint him 
with the ideas which pliilosophers and scholars, reai'cd by a training difi"erent 
from their ovrd, have laboriously reached and devoutly entertain ; that, in a 
word, it should enlarge his materials and his sympathies as a man and a 
thinker." — Prospective Review. 



Wo7'ks already FuhUsJied. 



The Worship of Genius 5 



Being an Examination of the Doctrine announced by D. F. Strmiss, viz. 
" That to our Age of Keligious Disorganization nothing is left but a Worship 
of Genius ; that is, a Eeverence lor those great Spirits who create Epochs in 
the Progress of the Human Eace, and in whom, taken collectively, the God- 
like manifests itself to us most fully," and thus having reference to the views 
unfolded in the work entitled, " Heroes and Hero-worship," by Thomas Carl\)le. 



The DistinctiTe Character or Essence of Christianity : 

An Essay relative to Modern Speculations and the present State of Opinion 
Translated, from the German of Prof C. UUmann, by Lucr Sanfokd. 1 vol 
post 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

CONTENTS. 

1. General view of the object of the 
work. 



The different stages of development 
through which Christianity itself 
has passed. The same phases 
perceptible in the views which 
have been successively taken of it. 

Christianity as Doctrine. Under 
this head are comprised both 
SupernaturaUsm and Natu- 
ralism. 

Christianity as a Moral Law. The 
pliilosophy of Kant. Ration- 
alism. 

Christianity as the Religion of Re- 
demption. Schleiermacher's de- 
finition. 



6. 



The peculiar significance and in- 
fluence of Christ's individual 
character. 

7. The views of Hegel and his school. 

8. Christ as the exempMcation of the 

union of the Divine and Human 
in one character. 

9. Importance of this truth for the de- 

finition of the distinctive Charac- 
ter of Christianity. 

10. Christianity as the Perfect Religion. 

1 1 . Inferences from the preceding. 

12. Retrospect and epitome of the 

argument. 

13. Application of the preceding to the 

idea of Faith. 

14. Application to the Church. 



"»* The above two works are comprised in one volume, post 8vo. 3s. 6d. cloth. 



" There are many just and beautiful 
conceptions expressed and developed, 
and the mode of utterance and illustra- 



tion is more clear and simple than that 
adopted often by our German brethren 
in treating such topics." — Nonconformist. 



The Mission of the German Catholics. 

By Prof G. G. Gervinus, Author of the " Geschichte der Poetischen 
Kational-Literatur der Deutschen." Post 8vo. Is. 4d. 



"This work well deserves an intro- 
duction to an English public. It con- 
tains the reflections of a German philo- 
sopher on the extraordinary religious 
movement wliich is now agitating his 
countrymen ; his anticipations, and his 
wishes respecting its results." — Inquirer. 

In an article upon the Autiior's 
" History of the Poetical Literature of 
the Germans," the North American 

The Destination of Man. 

By JoHANN Gottlieb Fichte. 
Percy Sinnett. 3s. 6d. cloth. 
" This is the most popular exposition 
of Fichte's philosopliy wliich exists."— 
Memoir of Fichte, by W. Smith. 
" ' The Destination of Man ' is, as 



Review says :— " He exhibits the ex- 
tensive and profound erudition, the 
histoi-ical faculty of bringing past and 
remote states of society near, and pro- 
jecting the present into the distance; 
and tlie philosophical insight into the 
distinguishing features of individuals, 
communities, and epochs, which so 
favourably characterize the recent his- 
toriography of the Germans." 



Translated from the German, by Mrs. 

Fichte truly says, intelligible to all 
readers who are really able to under- 
stand a book at all ; and as the history 
of the mind in its various phases of 



THE CATHOLIC SERIES (C0?ltinuetl.) 



doubt, knowledge, and faith, it is of 
interest to all. Agree with Fichte, or 
disagree with liiin, you cannot help 
being carried along by his earnestness ; 
you cannot helj) being struck with his 
subtlety and deptli. Argument, in such 
a matter, m'c take to be wholly in- 
different. A book of this stamp is sure 
to teach you much, because it excites 
tliought. If it rouses you to combat 
his conclusions, it has done a good 
work ; for in that very effort you are 
stirred to a consideration of points 
which have hitherto escaped your in- 
dolent acquisescence. Of the transla- 
tion, we must, on tlie whole, speak very 
highly. It is accurate in the best 
sense." — Foroig-n Quarterly. 

" ' The Destination of Man 'is Fichte's 
most popular w^ork, and is every way 



remarkable. Aware that the great 
imblic was fully competent to grapple 
witli tlie most arduous problems of 
philosophy, when lucidly stated, how- 
ever it might shrink from the jargon 
of tiie schools, Fichte undertook to 
present his opinions in a popular 
form Mrs. Percy Sinuett has 

i thoroughly mastered tlie meaning of 
lier author, presents it clearly before 
the reader, and that without perpetually 
murdering our language by the intro- 

! ductiou of barbarous neologisms."— 

I Atlas. 

j " It appears to us the boldest and 
i most emphatic attempt tliat has yet 
I been made to explain to man his rest- 
j less and unconquei*able desire to win 
i the true and the eternal." — Sentinel. 



Charles Elwoodj or^ tlic Infidel Couycrted. 

By O. A. Brownson. Fost 8vo. 4s. cloth; 3s. 6d. paper cover. 



" Charles Elwood is an attempt to pre- 
sent Cln-istiunity so tliat it shall satisfy 
the plulosophic element of our nature. 
In this consists its peculiar merit and 
its distinctive characteristic. Such a 
book was certainly very much needed. 
"We have no doubt that it will add many 
a doubter to a cheerful faith, and con- 
firm many a feeble mind in the faith it ; 
has already professed. Mr. Brownson 
addresses the philosophic element, and 
the men in whom this element is pre- 1 
dominant ; and, of course, he presents i 
the arguments tliat would be the most ! 
striking and satisfactory to this class of j 
men. In so far as he ha-^ succeeded, he 
must be considered to have done a meri- 
torious work, ^yc think Mr. Brownson 
eminently qualified for this task, and 
that his success is complete. The Avork 
will, doubtless, be the means of giving 
composure and serenity to the faith of 
many who are as yet weak in the faith, 
or halting between two opinions."— j 
ChrLitian Examiner. j 

" In a series of cliapters, Mr. Morton ' 
explains the nature of the Christian 
faith, and replies to the objections 
raised by Elwood as the discussion pro- 
ceeds, and tlie argument we take to be 
conclusive, though of course every one 
may differ as to details. The miglity 
theme is handled in a most masterly 
style, and the reasoning may fairly be ' 
called " mathematical." There is nei- 
tiier rant nor cant, hypothesis or dog- 
matism. Christ ianity is preved to be 
a "rational religious" system," and the \ 
priest is exhibited in his true character. I 



We can cordially recommend the vo- 
lume, after a very carefid perusal, to the 
layman who desires to tliink for him- 
self, and to the clergy, as eminently 
calculated to enlarge their views and 
increase their usefulness, by showing 
them the difference between sectarian- 
ism and Christianity." — Sentinel. 

" The purposes, in this stage of his 
progress, which Mr. Brownson has in 
view are, the vindication of the reality of 
the religious principle in the nature of 
man ; the existence of an order of senti- 
ments higher than the calculations of 
the understanding and the deductions 
of logic ; the foundation of morals on 
the absolute idea of right in opposition 
to the popular doctrine of expediency; 
the exposition of a spiritual philosophy ; 
and the connexion of Cliristiauity with 
the progress of society. 

" The Avork presents the most profound 
ideas in a simple and attractive form. 
The discussion of tliese principles, 
which in their primitive abstraction are 
so repulsive to most minds, is carried 
on, through tlie medium of a slight fic- 
tion, with considerable dramatic effect. 
We become interested in the final 
opinions of the subjects of the tale, as 
we do in tlie catastrophe of a romance. 
A slender thread of narrative is made 
to sustain the most w^'ighty arguments 
on the philosopliy of religion ; but the 
conduct both of the story and of the 
discussion is managed with so much 
skill, tliat they serve to relieve and for- 
ward each other."— Dm/. 



Chapman, Brothers, 121, Neicgate-street. 



19 



THE CATHOLIC SERIES — {continuecl .) 

Ou the Mature of the Scholar^ and its lauifestatioiis. 

By JoHAXN Gottlieb Fitche. Translated from the German 
Memoii' of the Author, by Wlllia^i S^iith. Post 8vo. 6s. cloth. 



with a 



perfect novelty These orations 

are admu-ably fitted for their purpose ; 
so grand is the position talvcn by the 
lecturer, and so irresistible their elo- 
quence. To his excellent translation 
Mr. Smith has prefixed a biography of 
Fichte, abridged, thougli still copious, 
from the one written by Fichte, juiiior." 
— Examiner. 

"A pure and exalted morality and 
deep religious feeling breathes through- 
out the whole. .... The memoir 
prefixed to this volume, of which it fills 
about half, contains a concise and in- 
teresting accomit of Fichte's life and 
philosophical system."— J//s7i Monthly 
Magazine. 

" "We state Fichte's character as it is 
known and admitted by men of all 
parties among the Germans, when we 
say that so robust an intellect, a soul so 
calm, so lofty, massive, and immove- 
able, has not mingled in philosophical 
discussion since the time of Luther. 
.... Fichte's opinions may be true 
or false ; but his cliaracter as a thinker 
can be slightly valued only by such as 
know it ill ; and as a man, approved by 
action and sutFering, in liis life and in 
liis death, he ranks vnt\\ a class of men 
who were common only iu better ages 
than ours." — State of German Litera- 
ture, by Thomas Carlyle. 

The Philosophical and /Esthetic Letters and Essays of Schiller. 

Translated, with an Introduction, by J. Weiss. Post 8vo. 7s. Gd. cloth. 



" This work consists of two parts ;— 
a Life of Fichte full of nobleness and 
instruction, of gTand pm-pose, tender 
feehug, and brave eifort ; and a series 
of ten lectm-es on the Vocation and 
Functions of the Scholar. 

" The memoir, the compilation of 
which is executed with great judgment 
and fideUty, is the best preparation or 
prelection for a full and profitable com- 
prehension of the somewhat vague 
loftiness of tliese eloquent addresses." 
— Prospective Review. 

" The material trials that Fichte en- 
countered in the body are lost sight of 
in the spiritual contest wliich he main- 
tained ^^'ith liis own mind. The page 
that keeps the record of incidents is 
dignified throughout by the strong 
moral light that falls every^vhere upon 
it, like a glory, and sweetened by a 
living episode that flows through its 
dark and bright jjlaces like a stream of 
Timsic.^^—AthencBum. 

" With great satisfaction we welcome 
this first English translation of an 
author who occupies the most exalted ; 
position as a profound and original 
thinker; as an ii-resistible orator in the 
cause of what he beheved to be truth ; 
as a thoroughly honest and heroic man. 
.... Tile appearance of any of his ! 
works in our language is, we believe, a I 



" These Letters stand unequalled in 
the department of ^Esthetics, and are so 
esteemed even in Germany, which is so 
fruitful upon that topic. Schiller is 
Germany's best ^sthetician, and these 
letters contain the highest moments of 
Schiller. Whether we desire rigorous 
logical investigation or noble poetic ex- 
pression, whether we ^visll to stimulate 
the intellect or inflame the heart, we 
need seek no furtlier than these. They 
are trophies won from an unpopular, 
metaphysical form, by a lofty, inspiring, 
and absorbing i\xhiGct.''—Ititroduction. 

" It is not possible, in a brief notice 
like the present, to do more than inti- 
mate the kind of excellence of a book 
of this nature. It is a profound and 
beautiful dissertation, anrl nuist be dili- 
gently studied to be comprehended. 
After all the innumerable efforts that the 
present age has been some time making 
to cut a Royal road to everytliing, it is 
beginning to find that what sometimes 
seems the longest way round is the 



shortest way home ; and if there be a 
desire to have truth, the only way is to 
work at tlie windlass one's self, and 
bring up the buckets by the labour of 
one's OA\n good arm. AVhoever works 
at the present well, will find ample 
reward for the labour they may bestow 
on it ; the truths he will draw up are 
universal, and from tliat pure elemen- 
tary fountain 'that maketh wise lie that 
driiiketh thereat.'" — Douslax JerrokPs 
Magazine. 

" It is difficult, if not impossible, to 
give a brief, and at the same time faith- 
fid, summary of the ideas affirmed by 
Scliiller in tins volume. Its aim is to 
develop tlie ideal of humanity, and to 
define the successive steps which must 
be trodden to attain it. Its spirit 
aspires after human ira])rovment, and 
seeks to indicate the means of realiza- 
tion. Schiller insists upon tlie necessi- 
ty of aesthetic culture as preliminary to 
moral culture, and in order to make 
the latter possible. According to the 



THE CATHOLIC SERIES — {conthiued.) 



doctrine here set fortli, until man is 
aesthetically developed, he cannot be 
naorally free, hence not responsible, as 
tliere is no sphere for the operation of 
the vnW. 

" The St vie in which the whole volume 
is written 'is particidarly beautiful, there 
is a consciousness of music in every page 
we read ; it it remarkable for tlie con- 
densation of thought and tirm consist- 
ency wliich prevails tliroughout; and. 
so far as we are able to jud<?e, the 
translation is admirably and faithfully 
rendered. The twenty-seven letters 
upon the ' Esthetic Culture of Man,' 
form the most prominent, and by far 
the most valuable, portion of tlie work ; 
they will be found full of interest and 
the choicest riches, which will abund- 
antly repay any amount of labour 
bestowed upon them."— I?iquirer. 

" This is a book which demands and 
deserves study. Either to translate or 
to appreciate it requires a somewhat 
peculiar turn of mind. Not tliat any 
body could read it without profit, but to 

The Pliilosopliy of Art. 



gain from it all that it is capable of 
yielding, there must be some aptitude 
for such studies, and some training in 

them too To be appreciated it 

must be studied, and the study will be 
well repaid." — Ckristiati Examiner. 

" Here we must close, unwillingly, 
this volume, so abounding in food for 
thought, so fruitful of fine passages, 
lieartily commending it to all of our 
readers who desire to make acquaint- 
ance with the philosophy of art. The 
extracts we have taken will prove what 
a treasure is here, for they are but a 
fraction of the gems that are to be 
gathered in every page. We make no 
apology for having so long lingered over 
this book ; for, albeit, philosophy is 
somewhat out of fashion in our age of 
materiahsm, it yet will find its votaries, 
fit though few ; and even tliey who care 
not for the higlier regions of reflection, 
cannot fail to reap infinite pleasure 
from the eloquent and truthful passages 
we have sought to cull for their mingled 
delight and edification."— Cy?Ytc. 



An Oration on tlie Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature. Translated from 
the German of F. W. J. VoN Schelling, by A. Johnson, Tost 8vo. Is. 
paper cover ; Is. 6d. cloth. 



" This excellent oration is an appli- 
cation to art of Schelling's general 
philosophic principles. Schelling takes 
the bold course, and declares that what 
is ordinarily called nature is not the 
summit of perfection, but is only the 
inadequate manifestation of a high 
idea, which it is tlie office of man to 
penetrate. The true astronomer is not 
he who notes down laws and causes 
which were never revealed to sensuous 
organs, and ^vhich are often opposed to 
the prima facie iiittuences of sensuous 
observers. The true artist is not he wlio 
merely imitates an isolated object in 
nature, but he who can penetrate into 
the unseen essence that lurks behind 
the visible crust, and afterwards re- 
produce it in a visible form. In the 
surrounding world means and ends are 



clashed and jarred together ; in the 
work of art the heterogenous is ex- 
cluded, and an unity is attained not to 
be found elsewhere. Schelling, in his 
oration, chiefly, not exclusively, regards 
the arts of painting and sculpture ; but 
his remarks will equally apply to 
others, such as poetry and music. This 
oration of Schelling's deserves an exten- 
sive perusal. The translation, \vith the 
exception of a few trifling iiiaccurrcies, 
is admirably done by Mr. Johnson; 
and we know of no work in our language 
better suited to give a notion of the turn 
which German philosophy took after it 
abandoned the subjectivity of Kant and 
Fichte. The notion will, of course, be 
a faint one; but it is something to know 
the latitude and longitude of a mental 
liosition." — Examiner. 



The Life of Jean Paul Fr. Richtcr. 

Compiled from various sources. Together with liis Autobiography, Transla- 
ted from the German. 2 vols, paper cover, 7s. ; cloth, 8s. 



" The autobiography of Richter, which 
extends onljr to his twelfth year, is one 
of the most interesting studies of a true 
poet's childhood ever given to the 
world." — Lorve's Edinburgh Magazine. 

" RicJiter lias an iiiteHect vehement, 
rugged, irresistible, crushing in pieces 
the hardest problems ; piercing into tlie 
most hidden combinations oi things, 
and grasping the most distant; an 



imagination vague, sombre, splendid, 
or appalling, brooding over the abysses 
of being, wandering through infinitude, 
and summoning before us, in its dim 
religious light, shapes of brilliancy, 
solemnity, or terror; a fancy of exu- 
berance literally unexampled, for it 
pours its treasm-es with a lavishness 
which knows no limit, hanging, like 
the sun, a jewel on every grass-blade, 



THE CATHOLIC SERIES — {cOnthlUed.) 



and sowing the earth at large with 
orient pearls. But deeper than all 
these lies humoiu*, the ruling quality 
of KiCHTER — as it were the central fire 
that pervades and vivifies his whole 
being. He is a humorist from his in- 
most soul ; he thinks as a humorist ; he 
imagines, acts, feels as a humorist: 
sport is the element in wliich his 
nature lives and works."— Thomas 
Cari-yx,e. 

" With such a writer it is no common 
treat to be intimately acquainted. In 
the proximity of great and virtuous 
minds we imbibe a portion of theii- na- 
ture — feel, as mesmerists say, a health- 
ful contagion, are braced ^vith the same 
spirit of faith, hope, and patient en- 
durance—are furnished with data for 
clearing up and working out the intri- 
cate problem of life, and are inspired, 
like them, with the prospect of immor- 
tality. No reader of sensibility can rise 
from the perusal of these volumes with- 
out becoming both wiser and better." — 
Atlas. 

'MYe find in the present biography 
much that does not so much amuse 
and instruct, as, to adopt a phrase from 
the religious world, positively edify the 
reader. The life of Kichter is indeed 
a moral and a religious, as much as a 
literary treat, to aUwho have a sense 
exercised to discei-n reUgion and mora- 
lity as a thing essentially different from 
mere orthodoxy and asceticism. The 
two volumes before us cannot be se- 
riously read -without stimulating the 
reader, like a good sermon, to self-ame- 
lioration, and in this respect they are 
invaluable. 

" Eichter is a thorough Christian, and 
a Christian with alarge glowing human 
heart. The appearance of liis biography 
in an English form cannot, therefore, 
but be regarded as a great boon to the 
best interests of the country."— Tafi'* 
Magazine. 

" Apart from tlie interest of the work, 
as the life of Jean Paul, the reader 
learns something of German life and 
German thought, and is introduced to 
Weimar during its most distinguislied 
period— when Goethe, Schiller, Herder, 
and Wieland, the great fixed stars of 
Germany, in conjunction with Jean 
Paul, were tliere, surrounded by beau- 
tiful and admiring women, of the most 



refined and exalted natiu-es, and of 
princely rank. It is full of passages so 
attractive and valuable that it is diffi- 
cult to make a selection as examples of 
its character." — hiquirer. 

" This book will be found very valu- 
able as an introduction to the study of 
one of the most eccentric and difficult 
writers of Germany. Jean Paul's writ- 
ings are so much the reflex of Jean Paul 
himself, that every light that shines 
upon the one inevitably illumines the 
other. The work is a useful exhibition 
of a great and amiable man, who, pos- 
sessed of the kindliest feeUngs, and the 
most brilUaut fantasy, turned to a high 
purpose that Iiumom- of which Kabelais 
is the great grandfather, and Sterne one 
of the line of ancestors, and contrasted 
it -with an exaltation of feeling and a 
rhapsodical poetry which are entirely 
his own. Let us hope that it will com- 
plete the work begun by Mr. Carlyle's 
Essays, and cause J ean Paid to be reaUy 
read in this country." — Examiner. 

" Richter is exliibited in a most ami- 
able light in this biography— industri- 
ous, frugal, benevolent, witli a child-like 
simplicity of character, and a heart 
overflowing mtli tlie pm'est love. His 
letters to his mfe are beautiful memo- 
rials of true alfection, and the way in 
which lie perpetually speaks of his chil- 
dren shows that he was the most at- 
tached and indulgent of fathers. Who- 
ever came within the sphere of his com- 
panionship appears to have contracted 
an afiection for him that death only 
dissolved : and while his name was re- 
sounding through Germany, he re- 
mained as meek and humble as if he 
had still been an unknown adventurer 
on Parnassus." — The Apprentice. 

" The Ufe of Jean Paul is a charming 
piece of biography which draws and 
rivets the attention. The affections of 
the reader are fixed on the hero with an 
intensity rarely bestowed on an his- 
torical character. It is impossible to 
read this biography without a convic- 
tion of its integrity and truth ; and 
thougli Ilitcher's style is more difficult 
of translation than that of any other 
German, yet we feel that his golden 
thouglits have reached us pure from tlie 
mine, to wliich he has given that impress 
of genius wliich makes tliem current in 
all countries."— C/i>7s<?aw licformer. 



Essays. By R. W. Emerson. 

(Second Series.) With a Notice by Thomas Carltle. 3s. paper cover ; 
3s. 6d. cloth. 

"Among the distinguishing features ] and its strong advocacy of human wants 

ofChristianity— we areready tosayTHE and rights. In this particular, few 

distinguishing feature— is its humanity, have a iDetter title to be ranked among 

its deep sympathy with human kind, | the followers of Jesus than the author 



THE CATHOLIC SERIES — (conthiued.) 



of this hook."— Amenca7i Christian Ex- 
aminer. 

" The difficulty we find in giving a 
proper notice of this volume, arises 
from the perviulinprness of its excellence, 
and tlie compression of its matter. 
AVith more learDiiiirthan Hazlitt, more 
perspicuity tlian Carlylc, more vigour 
and depth of thou,2;lit than Addison, and 
witli as much originality and fascination 
as any of them, this volume is a bril- 
liant addition to the Table Talk of in- 
tellectual men, be they wlio or where 
they may." — Prospective Review. 

" 3Ir. iEmerson is not a common man, 
and everything he writes contains sug- 
gestive matter of much thought and 
earnestness." — Exainiiier. 

" That Emerson is, in a high degree, 
possessed of the faculty and vision of 
tlie neer, none can doubt who Avill ear- 
nestly and with a kind and reverential 
spirit peruse these nine Essays. He 
deals only with the true and the eternal. 
His piercing gaze'at once slioots swiftly, 
surely througli the outward and the su- 
periicial, to the inmost causes and work- 
ings. Any one can tell the time who 
looks on tlie face of the clock, but he 
loves to lay bare the machinery and 
show its moving principle. His words 
and his thouglits are a fresli spring, 
that invigorates the soul that is steeped 
therein. His mind is ever dealing with 
the eternal ; and those who only live to 
exercise their lower intellectual facul- 



ties, and desire only new facts and new 
images, and those who liave not a feel- 
ing or an interest in the great question 
of mind and matter, eternity and nature, 
will disregard him as unintelligible and 
uninteresting, as they do Bacon and 
riato, and, indeed, philosophy itself."— 
Douglas Jerrold's Magazine. 

" Beyond social science, because be- 
yond and outside social existence, there 
lies tlie science of self, the development 
of man in his individual existence, 
within himself and for himself. Of this 
latter science, which may perhaps be 
called the philosophy of individuality. 
My. Emerson is an able apostle and 
interpreter." — J^eague. 

" As regards the particular volume of 
Emerson before us, we think it an im- 
provement upon the first series of essays. 
The subjects are better chosen. They 
come more home to the experience of 
the mass of makind, and are conse- 
quently more interesting. Their treat- 
ment also indicates an artistic improve- 
ment in the composition." — Spectator. 

"All lovers of literature will read 
Jlr. Emerson's new volume, as the 
most of them have read his former one ; 
and if correct taste, and sober views of 
life, and such ideas on the higher sub- 
jects of thought as we have been ac- 
customed to accomit as truths, are 
sometimes outraged, we at least meet 
at every step with originality, imagi- 
nation, and eloquence."— /«yt<»-<?r. 



The Emaucipaliou of tlic Negroes in the British West Indies. 

An Address delivered at Concord, Massachusetts, on the 1st of August, 1844 
By R. W. Emerson. Tost 8vo. Gd. paper cover. 

It is really purifying to be able to 



turn, at this moment, to anything 
righteous and generous from an Ameri- 
can on Slavery and Great r>ritain, so as 
to be relieved from the scorn and loath- 
ing produced by Mr. Calhoun's Letter 
to the American JMinister at Paris. 
Since Channing is no more, it is a satis- 
faction that there is one man in Ame- 



rica of a potential voice, who can utter 
these \vords of reproof to his country, of 
justice to Great Britain."— Pro*. Rev. 

" We need not tell any one who has 
the slightest acquaintance with his pre- 
vious writings that Mr. Emerson is elo- 
quent; and here he has a noble subject, 
into which he has thi'own his whole 
soul." — Inquirer. 



The Roman Cliurch and Modern Society. 

By E. QmNET, of the College of France. Translated from the French Third 
Edition (with the Author's approbation), by C. Cocks, B.L. 8vo. 5s. cloth. 



"We take up this enlightened volume, 
which aims, in the spirit of history and 
philosophy, to analyze the IJomanist 
jirinciple, with pecuhar pleasure. A 
glance at the headings of the chapters 
much interested ourselves, and we doubt 
not will our readers :— The Superlatively 
Catholic Kingdom of Spain ; I'olitical 
Results of Catholicism in Spain ; The 
Roman Church and the State ; The 
Roman Church and Science ; The Ro- 



man Church and History; The Roman 
Church and Law ; The Roman Church 
and riiilosophy ; The Roman Church 
and Nations ; The Roman Church and 
tlie Universal Church." — Christian Re- 
furmer. 

" The fourth lectm-e, entitled ' The 
Roman Church and Science,' appears to 
us the most striking and luminous ex- 
position Ave have seen of the condition 
of the Roman church, and of its unavail- 



THE CATHOLIC SERIES {contklUed.) 



ing hostility to the prog^i-ess of mankind. 
Our space precludes the possibility of 
quoting the whole, or we should do so 
vdth great pleasure. It delineates, in 
vivid colours, the history of Galileo, his 
character, his discoveries, his philo- 
sophical protest against the theology of 
Eome, the horrible persecutions which 
lie suifered, and his effects upon the 
ecclesiastical power— changing the rela- 
tive positions of science and the church, 
unfolding a theology more profound 
than that of Rome, a code of laws more 
infallible than that of the church, a 
gi'and and comprehensive system of 
ideas transcenchng in its Catholicity 
Catholicism itself 

" The four remaining lectures are 
severally entitled— The Roman Church 
and Law (in which the Inquisition is a 
conspicuous subject)— The Roman 
Church and Philosophy— The Roman 
Chm-ch and Nations— The Roman 
Church and the Universal Church. We 
cannot characterize each of these in 
particular : sulRce it to say that there is 
a profound and expansive philosophical 
spirit breathing through the whole; 
every subject is compelled to contribute 
its entire force of facts and illustration 
for the constraction of the one great 
argument which is the object and com- 
plement of each— viz., that the Roman 
Church is no longer adequate to the 
enlarged needs and aspirations of man- 
kind, that it has fulfilled the mission for 
which it was originated— that the ener- 
gies it once put forth in the cause of 
humanity are paralyzed, that its decre- 
pitiode is 7nanifest, and its vitality 
threatened, that it has shown itself in- 
capable of continuing as the minister of 



God's will, and t\ie interpreter of those 
di\ine laws whose incarnation in human 
life is the pledge of man's spiritual ad- 
vancement and happiness, that it heeds 
not the signs ol the times, refuses any 
alliance with the spirit of progression, 
cUngs tenaciously to the errors and 
dead formulas of the past, recognizes 
the accession of no new truths, and 
hence prostrates the intellect, proscribes 
the enlargement of our spiritual boun- 
daries, lays an inderdict on human pro- 
gress, compels us to look perpetually 
backwards, and blights our hopes of the 
tutm-e, and— in the words of Quinet— 
'represents tlie earth as a condemned 
world formed for chastisement and evil.' 

" Considered as a whole, the book be- 
fore us is the most powerful and philo- 
sophically consistent protest against 
the Roman Church which has ever 
claimed our attention, and, as a strong 
confirmation of its stirring efficiency, 
we may mention that the excitement it 
has created in Paris has subjected the 
author to a reprimand from both Cham- 
bers of the Legislature, and excommu- 
nication by the Poi)e." — Inquirer. 

" M. Quinet belongs to the movement 
party, and has lately been conspicuous 
in resisting the pretensions of the Jesuit 
and French clergy to the exclusive edu- 
cation of tl'.e youth of France. He has 
grappled with his theme both practi- 
cally, and in the philosopliical spirit of 

history Rare merits are comprised 

in this volume a genuine spirit 

pervades it, and there ai'e many pasa- 
ges of great depth, originahty and elo- 
quence." — Atlas. 

" .... These eloquent and valuable 
lectm'es." — New Church Advocate. 



The Rationale of Religious Inquiry \ 



Or, the Question stated, of Reason, the Bible, and the Chin-ch. By James 
Martineau. Third Edition, With a Critical Letter on Rationalism, Mira- 
cles, and tiie Authority of Scripture, by the late Rev. Joseph Blanco 
White. 4s. paper cover ; 4s. 6d. cloth. 



Sermons of Consolation. 

By F. W. P. Greenwood, D.D. 



53. cloth. 



" This is a really delightful volume, 
which we would gladly see producing 
its purifying and elevating influences in 
all our families."— 

" This beautiful volume we are sure 

Self-Culture. 

By William Ellery Ciianning. 

Cliristianity, or Europe. 



will meet with a grateful reception from 
all who seek instruction on the topics j 
most interesting to a thoughtfid mind. 
Tliere are twenty-seven sermons in the 
volume." — Christian Examiner. 



6d. paper cover ; Is. cloth. 



Translated from the German of Novalis (Friedrich von Ilardenberg), by 
the Rev. J. Dalton. Gd. paper cover. 



(Uniform, in Post Octavo.) 

For Prospectus, explaining the Principles and Object of the Series, 
and for the Opinions of the Press, see pages 15 and 16 of the 
Catalogue. 



The whole of the Worlcs which have been published in the Series appear 
in the following list ; but for the prices of the different books, and criticisms 
upon them, see the preceding pages from 17 to 23. 

Works already Published. 

t. Tlie Pliilosopliical and iSstSietie liOtters 
anil Essays of l§cliillei*. 
Tlte Pliilosopliy of* Art. By F. W. J. Von Schelling. 
S. Tlie Destiitatioit of Man. By Johann G. Fichte. 

4. Tlie :^atui*e of tlte Scliolai* and its Mani- 

festations. By Johann Gottlieb Fichte. 

5. Essays. By R. W. Emerson. 

Tlie Emancipation of tlie JXegroes, By 
R. W. Emerson. 

9. Tite liife of .lean Paul Fi*. Ricliter. 2 vols. 

8. Tlte Roman Cl&iircli and Modern So- 

ciety. By E. auinet. 

9. Tlie Rationale of Religious Inquiry. By 

James Martineau. 

to. Cliarles Eli^ood ; or, tlte Infidel Con- 
verted. By 0. W. BroAMison. 

II. Sermons of Consolation. By F. \Y. P. Green- 
wood, D.D. 

1«. Self-Culture. By WiUiam Ellery Channing. 

13. Christianity, or Europe. By Novalis. 

14. Tlie Mission of tlie Gerinan Catliolics. 

By Prof. G. G. Gcrvinus. 

15. Tlie Worsliip of Genius, and Tlie Ristinc- 

tive Cliaracter or Essence of Chris- 
tianity. By Prof. C. UUmann. 

_=__=_^=^_=^ 

Morton & Chapman, Printers, 2, Crane-court, Fleet-street " ^ i^^-^ 



